Flying Forward 2020, a European research project focussed on developing urban air mobility solutions, has announced it will start demonstrating its autonomous drones on High Tech Campus Eindhoven (HTCE) in the Netherlands.
Flying Forward 2020 is a three-year research project funded by the European Union to develop an urban air mobility ecosystem within city infrastructure. Throughout the last year, Flying Forward 2020 has developed solutions that will be tested in five living labs, firstly in Eindhoven, and then in Milan, Zaragoza, Tartu and Oulu.
Flying Forward 2022’s demonstrations on High Tech Campus Eindhoven will take place from the end of March until September 2022. The campus site includes over 250 high-tech companies and is home to more than 12,000 innovators, researchers and engineers.
Paul van Son, Innovation Manager at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, said:As a campus, we create the perfect environment for innovation for both our residents and our suppliers. With the Flying Forward 2020 project, we develop both: a living lab for high-tech companies related to the drone industry, and a pilot environment for our suppliers to experiment with the use of drones for the services they provide on campus. Besides this, it helps us create the digital infrastructure needed for the development of spacial web applications, an enabler for future Metaverse developments.
Five use cases will be tested on campus. The first use case will focus on security, as the drones will be used for surveillance of the premises. The second will involve building monitoring, using the drones to scan and inspect buildings to assess their condition. The last three use cases concern last-mile deliveries of goods such as meals, packages and automated external defibrillators to the rural section of the campus.
Ted van Hoof, Urban Air Mobility Project Manager at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, said:HTCE is the first living lab in this research and innovation project to perform tests and demonstrations. It is also one of the first sites in Europe that is experimenting with Urban Air Mobility and experiencing multiple drones flying autonomously while performing specific tasks. At this point, any knowledge we gain from these tests will contribute to making a step forward that will benefit others in this field as well. I hope that the use cases on campus will help improve Urban Air Mobility solutions so that European citizens can see drones flying above them safely and the added value of these advancements to their everyday lives within the next decade or so.
In June 2022, Flying Forward 2020 will hold an event in the city of Eindhoven to showcase the results of this first living lab and present the developed solutions.
