Drones are opening up a wide range of new opportunities for mobility and logistics concepts. At the same time, their increasing use is making the safe integration of unmanned aerial systems into existing civil airspace ever more important. The “Air-Take-Off” research project has therefore investigated how manned aircraft and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) can safely interact and how potential conflicts in the airspace can be avoided.

The focus of Air-Take-Off was on developing solutions for the detection and localisation of drones as well as automated conflict avoidance. The project investigated various technical approaches for reliably determining the position and flight behaviour of aircraft and identifying critical situations at an early stage. The full project report will be submitted at the end of the project in October.

“With Air-Take-Off, we were able to develop and test various building blocks for the safe interaction of manned and unmanned aviation under real-world conditions. These technologies allow us to address a wide range of application scenarios and make a sustainable contribution to improving aviation safety,” says Prof. Hartmut Fricke, holder of the Chair of Air Transport Technology and Logistics and project leader.

Technologies for safe drone operations

Part of the research focused on the cooperative detection of aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), such as drones, based on transmitted position information via common transponders such as Mode S or Remote Identification.

In addition, non-cooperative detection methods were investigated. Camera systems can automatically detect and distinguish flying objects such as aircraft, drones, birds and balloons, as well as estimate their distance. Based on this airspace picture, a UAV has sufficient data available – using the technology developed at TUD – to avoid other airspace users.

Applications in disaster response

Another focus was the development of an aircraft-based transport and deployment system for UAVs. Using this system, a manned aircraft can transport a drone to a specific area of operation and release it there.

Such applications could, for example, support operations in hard-to-reach disaster areas from the air – including wildfires or the delivery of relief supplies to areas that are difficult to access. This application concept also gave the project its name: Air-Take-Off.

Enabling seamless communication

The close-range operation of manned aircraft and unmanned drones requires reliable communication, which was another focus of the research. The scientists compared different wireless communication technologies, including Wi-Fi and mobile communications.

This is a crucial component, particularly for applications in disaster areas where ground-based network connectivity may no longer be available. In such cases, the manned aircraft can serve as an access point for the drone – an approach demonstrated using the TUD 5G campus network.

Living laboratory at Kamenz airfield

Kamenz airfield is an important test site for research into autonomous air mobility. Among other facilities, it provides a mobile 5G campus network, a competence centre for autonomous flight and TUD’s Cessna 172 research aircraft as a technology and test platform.