Inmarsat partners with TTP to hasten integration of UAVs into commercial airspace

Inmarsat and the Euro­pean Space Agency (ESA) have announced the devel­op­ment of a com­pact satel­lite ter­mi­nal for Uncrewed Aer­i­al Vehi­cles (UAVs) as part of the Iris air traf­fic mod­erni­sa­tion pro­gramme, paving the way for UAVs to be safe­ly inte­grat­ed into com­mer­cial air­space.

TTP will deliv­er the core tech­nol­o­gy for a low size, weight, pow­er and cost (SWaP‑C) ter­mi­nal with an inte­grat­ed anten­na which will be avail­able lat­er this year, and will be suit­able for almost all UAVs, pro­vid­ing a secure data link between uncrewed vehi­cles, remote oper­a­tors and air traf­fic con­trol.

The minia­ture Inmarsat ter­mi­nal brings scal­able Beyond Visu­al Line of Sight (BVLOS) oper­a­tions and will unlock a range of pos­si­bil­i­ties for flight oper­a­tors such as teleme­try for plat­form health mon­i­tor­ing, IP voice relay for air traf­fic con­trol com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and data ser­vices such as video stream­ing for inspec­tion appli­ca­tions.

Option­al hybrid con­nec­tiv­i­ty will also be inte­grat­ed with­in the ter­mi­nal where cel­lu­lar cov­er­age is avail­able, ensur­ing intel­li­gent rout­ing of data and ser­vices. As part of Iris, TTP is also con­tract­ed for research and devel­op­ment of UAV safe­ty ser­vices, for exam­ple last mile tac­ti­cal decon­flic­tion, known as detect and avoid (DAA).

Inmarsat senior direc­tor of advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) Antho­ny Spounc­er said: “The num­ber of uncrewed vehi­cles in mixed air­space is expect­ed to increase ten­fold over the next 8–10 years.

“Through the exper­tise of TTP, Inmarsat’s new UAV ter­mi­nal will bring a solu­tion that is scal­able, less depen­dent on infra­struc­ture, and dig­i­talised to ben­e­fit air traf­fic mod­erni­sa­tion pro­grammes like Iris.”

TTP head of satel­lite and space Tris­tan Barkley added: “We have a long his­to­ry of devel­op­ing core enabling tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms for world-lead­ing com­pa­nies like Inmarsat to sup­port Inmarsat and ESA in safe­ly open­ing up air­space for UAVs.”

Pow­ered by Inmarsat’s Swift­Broad­band-Safe­ty (SB‑S) con­nec­tiv­i­ty plat­form, Iris enables real-time col­lab­o­ra­tion between pilots, air traf­fic con­trollers and air­line oper­a­tion cen­tres by using cost-effec­tive, secure and high­ly resilient data link com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

This relieves pres­sure on con­gest­ed Very High Fre­quen­cy (VHF) links, enabling the use of time-based air traf­fic man­age­ment to pro­vide reduced flight delays and costs for air­lines, while also low­er­ing unnec­es­sary CO2 emis­sions.

Iris sup­ports the Sin­gle Euro­pean Sky ATM Research (SESAR) pro­gramme and will begin fly­ing onboard com­mer­cial flights with easy­Jet in ear­ly 2023, mak­ing it the first com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vice ben­e­fit­ing from a Pan-Euro­pean cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA), secured through the programme’s part­ner Euro­pean Satel­lite Ser­vices Provider (ESSP).

This will be fol­lowed by Iris Glob­al, which extends the programme’s ben­e­fits far beyond Europe, lead­ing to larg­er CO2 reduc­tions and improved air­space capac­i­ty across the world.