SESAR project PJ34-AURA completes the validation exercise into the Grottaglie Airport Test Bed.

Partners of the SESAR project PJ34-AURA, Leonardo, with the participation of ENAV, D-Flight, ,Telespazio, LEONARDO Germany GmbH and NAIS, have completed the demonstration exercise of the project exploiting the research and experimentation infrastructure Grottaglie Airport Test Bed, managed by Distretto Tecnologico Aerospaziale (DTA). The experimentation regards solution for the digitalization of the #UAS flight authorization mechanism for operations near airports and for the management of all the coordination actions during an emergency originated by air traffic management in the U-space airspace. The exercise demonstrated quality of prototypes developed by partners and has identified new research objectives.

The experimentation has been realized in the laboratory for the HTIL simulation of UAS operations into ATM and U-space of the Grottaglie Airport Test Bed, a research and experimentation infrastructure deployed into the offices of DTA into the airport og Grottaglie-Taranto.

The laboratory was deployed through a collaboration among DTA, Leonardo, d-flight, Telespazio, ENAV and other partners has provided systems already available, while Leonardo and d-flight have updated their ATM and U-space systems, already available into the laboratory, with the most advanced prototype versions and have made the system interoperable through a SWIM component. The laboratory now is composed of state-of-the-art solutions developed by the partners and allows to realize simulation of UAS operations that exploit controlled and U-space air spaces integrating also data coming from real UAS flights (HTIL simulations). The laboratory allows ATCO and remote pilots to try innovative solutions in real but safe and secure operations scenarios.

The experimentation demonstrates the far-sightedness and the effectiveness of the laboratory Grottaglie Airport Test Bed that is already planned to be exploited in future SESAR experimentations.