K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
The world’s largest automated drone superhighway has been given the greenlight and could be up and running in the United Kingdom in just two years.
The network will stretch 165 miles and link towns in the English Midlands and southeast including Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby.
A total of $15.4 million of funding for the project – known as Skyway – was confirmed by the British government as part of a $327 million package designed to boost the country’s aerospace industry.
The consortium behind Skyway – which includes unified traffic management (UTM) solution provider Altitude Angel, British Telecom’s mobile network EE and others – claims that the highway will unlock the huge potential offered by unmanned aerial vehicles in Britain.
It will work via a ground-based, networked, detect-and-avoid (DAA) solution that builds on current infrastructure, connected to Altitude Angel’s global UTM system, which brings together data from multiple sources in real-time to form a moving map of the sky.
Businesses in towns and cities along the superhighway will benefit by being able to deploy drones at the touch of a button to deliver goods, aid logistics or monitor road networks.
Skyway will facilitate this by allowing pilotless drones that do not need an operator to be flown beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). Drone manufacturers will connect their drones’ guidance and communication systems to the virtual superhighway, which will guide them safely through corridors, toward their destination, using software integration.
And with sensors located on the ground, rather than on the drones themselves, providing the guidance, the drones’ payload will be reduced, potentially increasing their flight range.
Continue reading: https://www.iotworldtoday.com/2022/07/20/worlds-largest-drone-superhighway-gets-greenlight/
The network will stretch 165 miles and link towns in the English Midlands and southeast including Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby.
A total of $15.4 million of funding for the project – known as Skyway – was confirmed by the British government as part of a $327 million package designed to boost the country’s aerospace industry.
The consortium behind Skyway – which includes unified traffic management (UTM) solution provider Altitude Angel, British Telecom’s mobile network EE and others – claims that the highway will unlock the huge potential offered by unmanned aerial vehicles in Britain.
It will work via a ground-based, networked, detect-and-avoid (DAA) solution that builds on current infrastructure, connected to Altitude Angel’s global UTM system, which brings together data from multiple sources in real-time to form a moving map of the sky.
Businesses in towns and cities along the superhighway will benefit by being able to deploy drones at the touch of a button to deliver goods, aid logistics or monitor road networks.
Skyway will facilitate this by allowing pilotless drones that do not need an operator to be flown beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). Drone manufacturers will connect their drones’ guidance and communication systems to the virtual superhighway, which will guide them safely through corridors, toward their destination, using software integration.
And with sensors located on the ground, rather than on the drones themselves, providing the guidance, the drones’ payload will be reduced, potentially increasing their flight range.
Continue reading: https://www.iotworldtoday.com/2022/07/20/worlds-largest-drone-superhighway-gets-greenlight/
