BVLOS Drone Testing at Cranfield University

By Mike Ball / 01 Oct 2021
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Plymouth Rock Technologies drone

Plymouth Rock Technologies (PRT) has provided custom drones and training services to Cranfield University for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) testing at the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) National Beyond Visual Line of Sight Experimentation Corridor (NBEC). The NBEC provides a safe, managed environment to test and develop concepts, principles, and technologies that will enable BVLOS drone operations in non-segregated airspace.

Ben Pickard, VP of UAS Development at PRT, commented: “From the outset, the differentiator of the PRT UAS operation was to create a product portfolio designed and engineered for autonomous and BVLOS flight as the primary function, while having a fully manual piloting capability as a secondary function. Our UAS platforms are currently being used in demanding BVLOS missions with critical value humanitarian and civilian missions which include the UN, Oil & Gas and Environmental agencies.”

“We are honoured to be supplying products and services into this program and further to share any data from operational deployments that will assist not only the CAA in the UK, but also the FAA in the United States.”

Carl Cagliarini, Chief Strategy Officer of PRT, said: “Being chosen by Cranfield University to be the supplier of UAS and training services for this globally recognized program is a positive endorsement of PRT and its products. The requirement for Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) capabilities to ensure flight safety systems, electronic redundancy and constant communication must be rigorously tested if drone technologies are ever to be deployed over urban environments for commercial operations.”

“This program takes our proven technologies to a higher level by assessing UAS capabilities towards the goal of introducing drones into nonsegregated airspace. This will require drones to sense, communicate and work with manned aircraft across general aviation and military operations.”

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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