Nokia to trial drone-based traffic management

Nokia is to use Space 53, Europe's first dedicated testing facility for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) at Twente Airport, near Enschede in the Netherlands to develop and trial its UAV Traffic Management (UTM) system using drones in proximity to urban areas, people, manned aircraft, other drones and other objects.
September 28, 2016 Read time: 2 mins

183 Nokia is to use Space 53, Europe's first dedicated testing facility for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) at Twente Airport, near Enschede in the Netherlands to develop and trial its UAV Traffic Management (UTM) system using drones in proximity to urban areas, people, manned aircraft, other drones and other objects.

Nokia will design and deliver the infrastructure to test and develop the Nokia UTM system at Twente Airport using real-life simulations and commercial demonstrations.

The Nokia UTM solution will provide the flight automation, no-fly zone control and beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) capability that will be vital for the safe operation of UAVs in densely populated cities and remote rural areas. UAVs must be able to operate without endangering manned aircraft operations, requiring the development of highly dynamic no-fly zones together with enforcement of civil aviation regulations.

The Nokia technology uses LTE and 5G, as well as Mobile Edge Computing, to ensure the extreme low-latency and ultra reliability required for UAV traffic management. Drones equipped with Nokia's UTM modem (comprising an LTE modem, GPS transceiver and other telemetry modules), combined with the computing and processing power of the Nokia AirFrame platform, monitor airspace and flight paths. They can also handle the exchange of telemetry data as well as establishing dynamic no-flight zones, ensuring safe operation around other civil airspace users.

A Nokia UTM smartphone app, working with the UAV Traffic Management interface, provides drone operators with real-time flight permissions, real-time no-fly zone information as well as information about local regulatory rules, giving an extra degree flexibility and awareness.

According to Nokia, the UTM platform can also be adapted to the individual regulatory requirements of different countries, potentially providing the basis for global standardisation of such systems.

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Jam buster and parking finder for Abu Dhabi
    March 20, 2014
    Abu Dhabi Department of Transport has completed a US$2.45 million system that will provide real-time information on traffic congestion, route guidance and other conditions via smartphones, the internet and navigation devices in cars. The Integrated Transport Information and Navigation System (i-TINS) collects real-time data from different sources – road side systems such as traffic counting systems and travel time measurement systems and central sub-systems such as taxi and bus GPS-based tracking systems
    Read More
  • Euromed countries warm to Galileo’s services
    June 6, 2014
    The EU is helping countries in North Africa and the Middle East utilise Galileo’s services. With its Galileo constellation rapidly taking shape, the European Union has opened lines of communication with countries in North Africa and the Middle East with a view to assisting their governments and businesses to utilise the satellite services that extend across the Mediterranean. The services available to countries are provided through the European Global Navigational Satellite System (E-GNSS), which includes a
    Read More
  • Urban utility
    July 24, 2012
    Steve Lane, Commercial Director at Triteq, talks about the successful deployment of ZigBee in Barcelona where a low-cost wireless metropolitan network for location and citizen services was established. The project, he says, demonstrates ZigBee's effectiveness as an urban communications system solution ZigBee is based on the IEEE radio frequency standard 802.15.4 - 2006 for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN), which provides a license-free radio frequency for a flexible, robust private wireless network. Z
    Read More
  • Bristol’s buses trial CycleEye detection system
    July 7, 2017
    Fusion Processing’s Jim Hutchinson looks at a two-year trial of the company’s cyclist detection system. Is cycling in a city dangerous? Well, that depends where you are and how you view statistics. Malmö is far more bike-friendly than Mumbai and the risk can either be perceived as small - one death per 29 million miles cycled in the UK in 2013 - or large - that equated to 109 deaths in the same year. Whatever your personal take on the data, the effect of these accidents can be felt indirectly too. News of c
    Read More

Highlighted Content