In Puglia the airport of Grottaglie (Taranto), already recognized as a spaceport and site of important investments by Leonardo between Eurodrone, a solar-powered drone and electric plane with vertical take-off and landing, is increasingly characterized as a base for experimentation with drones. A new project, financed by Miur and European structural funds for 3.850 million, was put on the launch pad by Ids (Systems Engineering), Exprivia, TopView-UAS Engineering and the University of Salento (Lecce) and the University of Bologna. Also involved are Aeroporti di Puglia, the company that manages the Apulian airports. The purpose of AcrOSS – this is the acronym of the project – is the safety and efficiency of drones in low-altitude flight. In fact, AcrOSS is an Environment for Safe Operations of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems.
Focus on aircraft flying 100 meters high
“This project was born a few years ago, was conceived in 2017, and aims to identify new solutions to make the flights of small low-altitude aircraft safe, we are talking about a maximum of 100 meters” explains Benito Carnovale to “Il Sole”, delivery Aerospace & Defense manager of Exprivia, a company that leads an international group specialized in ICT with 2,400 employees present in 7 countries. “In the case of AcrOSS – adds Carnovale – the goal is to study new solutions to make the flight mission in the assigned airspace safer. By security, given the programming of a drone in a flying space, we mean physical security, not cyber security. In this case, the intrusion into a communication channel is not dealt with but efforts are made so that the drone does not undergo variations with respect to a planned trajectory. Variations that can be different: an emergency landing, a slot deviated from the ground traffic of an airport, an unexpected weather condition “. “Even for a drone – notes Carnovale -, once a mission has been planned and authorized, it is always necessary to guarantee procedures and systems that protect at an infrastructural level. And so our project wants to study that for physical safety everything goes as planned with respect to contingencies and events “.
Possible fields of application
Framing the application field of the project, the Exprivia manager explains to “Il Sole” that “drones, for example, are used for various purposes in a ground airport. In fact, there are infinite operations that the employees must perform, verify their proper functioning, and these operations are then monitored by the authorities. Here – declares Carnovale – we can think that the various operations relating to the monitoring of the runway and the ground around the airport can be done through the overflight of a drone. All the lights that illuminate the runway and the adjacent space, which must be visible to the pilot, can also be monitored by the video taken by a drone and reprojected in the control unit “.
But the use can extend to other fields. “With a project funded by the Puglia Region – says Carnovale – we used drones as a possibility to recognize bulky waste in an abandoned area. And again, if there are critical weather conditions, a river bed can be flown over by a drone that reprojects the images and shows you whether or not there are obstacles along the course of the water. In addition, for environmental monitoring, we took care of the waste abandoned in the pine forests “.
Animal control in parks and precision agriculture
Still for drones, Exprivia has further interventions. “Another idea – announces Carnovale – to develop is the eventual control of the fauna inside a park to monitor the reproduction and the state of the animals. The latter will be equipped with a chip that will be recognized by the drone that will fly over the park. Furthermore, we are working in precision agriculture with “Olive Matrix. We will plan a mission to fly over the olive groves, sending back to the plant the images on the state and quality of the fruit and to better evaluate which interventions to carry out starting from irrigation “. “Another intervention – notes the Exprivia manager – then concerns the radioactive fallout in the port areas. In this case the drone will fly over the container unloading area in order to maximize safety. Finally – concludes Carnovale – there is a strong development for urban security and urban mobility. The Lazio Region plans the transport of drugs between local health authorities and hospitals while Puglia thinks of the urban mobility drone. As Exprivia we are involved in physical security and cyber security and control “.
Politecnico Milano: a 94 million market in 2021
Meanwhile, after the slowdown caused by the pandemic in 2020, last year was a restart year for the drone sector. The needs of social distancing, monitoring and rapid and efficient deliveries have clearly shown the potential of the market, according to what emerged from a research by the Drone Observatory of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano. In 2021, the professional drone market in Italy reached a value of 94 million euros, +29 percent compared to 2020, which however was not enough to return to pre-pandemic levels (117 million euros in 2019). There are now 713 companies active in the sector at national level. There were 45 closures in 2021 (111 if we consider the period 2018-2021). This market, observes the Politecnico di Milano, has already reached a good level of efficiency and effectiveness but still retains ample room for improvement from a technical and functional point of view.