EU approves Future Mobility Campus Ireland to develop aerial Unmanned Traffic Management systems

The EU has approved a Euro­pean con­sor­tium coor­di­nat­ed by Future Mobil­i­ty Cam­pus Ire­land (FMCI) in Shan­non to devel­op aer­i­al Unmanned Traf­fic Man­age­ment (UTM) sys­tems.

FMCI and its con­sor­tium part­ners will devel­op Europe’s unmanned flight ecosys­tem in a three-year project that includes Shan­non Group, the Irish Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, Collins Aero­space (Ire­land and France), Dublin-based Avtrain, Man­na and Deep­blue in Italy.

The con­sor­tium has received three-year fund­ing from the Sin­gle Euro­pean Sky ATM Research Joint Under­tak­ing (SESAR 3 JU) to devel­op unmanned avi­a­tion busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties in Ire­land.

Future Mobil­i­ty Cam­pus Ire­land CEO Rus­sell Vick­ers said: “This award will secure access to air­space for large num­bers of drones and eVTOL air­craft.”

Collins Aero­space val­ue stream leader Boe Svatek added: “It will help us work with our part­ners in Ire­land to sup­port safe and con­nect­ed unmanned flight.”

Shan­non Group CEO Mary Con­si­dine con­tin­ued: “As a found­ing mem­ber of SESAR 3 JU, Collins Aero­space is sup­port­ing its quest to mod­ernise Euro­pean air traf­fic man­age­ment.

“Shan­non Air­port has been at the fore­front of inno­va­tion over many decades, and it is essen­tial that we help to devel­op new tech­nol­o­gy and process­es that will allow unpilot­ed avi­a­tion to inte­grate with lega­cy air­space.”

Dublin-based Avtrain, Europe’s lead­ing drone pilot and oper­a­tor train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion organ­i­sa­tion, is delight­ed to be part of the new indus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion accord­ing to its CEO Julie Gar­land.

She said: “We are enter­ing a new era of inno­va­tion where the suc­cess of the indus­try will depend on the inte­gra­tion of unmanned air­craft into our air­space, rather than its seg­re­ga­tion.

“We look for­ward to work­ing with Collins Aero­space, FMCI, Shan­non Group and our part­ners in the project to move the indus­try to the next lev­el.”

Fund­ed by Enter­prise Ire­land and indus­try part­ners, the FMCI cam­pus was select­ed as home to the unmanned flight ecosys­tem devel­op­ment project on account of its state-of-the-art dig­i­tal frame­work facil­i­ties, includ­ing a recent­ly devel­oped Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Hub.

FMCI has already worked with Sky­ports, Avtrain, Shan­non Group and Fed­er­al Express tri­alling freight deliv­ery ser­vices using autonomous, beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) drone oper­a­tions.

Large-scale urban air mobil­i­ty demon­stra­tions took place in Bor­deaux in March 2021 and Toulouse in 2022 as part of a new con­sor­tium of com­pa­nies from France, Italy, Spain and the UK, co-ordi­nat­ed under SESAR 3 JU with Tac­ti­cal INstru­men­tal Decon­flic­tion And In-flight Res­o­lu­tion (TindAIR).

The month before, EHang joined two Euro­pean Union health­care projects to inte­grate unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cles for unmanned avi­a­tion across the Euro­pean Union.

Safe and Flex­i­ble Inte­gra­tion of Advanced U‑Space Ser­vices for Med­ical Air Mobil­i­ty (SAFIR-Med) select­ed 17 part­ners sup­port­ed by eight cross-indus­try advi­so­ry board mem­bers, includ­ing the Euro­pean Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) and The Red Cross.