Thales to Lead EU Drone Geofencing Project

By Mike Ball / 19 Mar 2019
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Thales has announced that it will manage the Geosafe project, which aims to establish state-of-the-art geofencing solutions for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as part of the European Commission U-space initiative. Originated by SESAR Joint Undertaking, a public-private partnership developing a high-performance European Air Traffic Management infrastructure, the Geosafe project is part of an initiative researching and developing new services for future safe, efficient and secure access to airspace of a large number of drones. Thales will be supported by the competencies of Aeromapper, AirMap, Atechsys, Airmarine and SPH Engineering.

By securing the flight pattern of drones to avoid determined zones, geofencing solutions are key safety enablers. They are notably mandatory to ensure that drones do not fly in protected perimeters around critical infrastructures, such as power plants or airports. The objectives of Geosafe are to establish state-of-the-art geofencing solutions regarding U-space regulation and to propose improvements and recommendations for future geofencing system definition.

Geosafe will be based on a one-year long flight-test campaign, assessing a number of commercially-available geofencing solutions in order to propose an improved geofencing system for the future and technological improvements for automated drones.

As the leader of the project, Thales will organize all tests and will provide recommendations for the European geofencing system.

“Thales is playing a leading role in shaping the autonomous world,” said Christian Bardot, Thales VP in charge of Helicopter and UAV Avionics Business. “Together with SESAR JU and the Geosafe partners, we will strengthen the foundations of drones safe and secure operations unleashing the potential of this tremendous market.”

The 280 flight tests will be conducted in France, Germany and Latvia, along the year. These tests are intended to test all possible situations that an automated drone will face in urban and rural areas.

Posted by Mike Ball Mike Ball is our resident technical editor here at Unmanned Systems Technology. Combining his passion for teaching, advanced engineering and all things unmanned, Mike keeps a watchful eye over everything related to the unmanned technical sector. With over 10 years’ experience in the unmanned field and a degree in engineering, Mike’s been heading up our technical team here for the last 8 years. Connect & Contact