LINEA STRATEGICA PROGRAMMATICA ARTES 4.0
SISTEMI SPAZIALI PER LA SICUREZZA E LA PROTEZIONE PUBBLICA (4S)
Studio di fattibilità 4S – Applicazioni satellitari per la sicurezza pubblica
ESA EXPRESS PROCUREMENT PLUS (EXPRO+) / OPEN-COMPETITIVE
DRONE-TECH
Applicazioni Satellitari per la Sicurezza Pubblica – Studio di soluzioni nuove ed innovative
The act of creating illegal landfills in general and in southern Italy in particular, is widespread and causes extensive collateral environmental damage – from the pollution of the public space to the contamination of the soil by improper garbage disposal and negligent dumping of toxic substances, as well as an extensive financial damage yielded from preventive activity, law-enforcement and cleanup operations.
Currently, the detection of recently created illegal landfills is based on proactive actions by law enforcement authorities and environmental organizations, but measures are required to do this in a timely manner and on a large scale, to generate enforcement deterrence and predictability.
The DRONE-TECH project intends to develop a technological demonstrator for the detection of illegal landfills, as a first step towards the development of an operational technological solution for significantly reducing the act of forming illegal landfills.
The project is based on a smart integration of drones’ technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The project is a result of a collaboration between Italian entities (DTA and UNIBA) and Israeli tech companies (High-lander and Sightec) who joint forces under the “Industrial call” of the Italian\Israeli bilateral fund.
Initially, the project aims to develop a technological demonstrator for automatic detection of garbage in various areas (e.g., sub-urban, open fields, wooded areas, etc.) classify them (i.e., construction, toxic, etc.) and monitor the area for any changes over time.
To be able the achieve its goals and set the ground for future commercial operations, the project also promotes efficient deployment and flight patterns for drones, including aspects of command & control (to be managed by local law-enforcement authorities), aerial regulation and public acceptance.
In the long run, the DRONE-TECH project is aiming at developing a commercial system for the early detection and prediction of illegal landfills and hence to significantly reduce the phenomena in southern Italy and beyond.
- Develop automatic Large-scale monitoring through aerial platform surveys.
- Monitoring on a more detailed scale through surveys carried out by drones capable of acquiring higher resolution data.
- Automatically identify specific types of waste out of aerial footage.
- Generating dedicated methodology for the operation of drones for detecting illegal landfills.
- Early detection of illegal landfills that will allow law enforcement to efficient their efforts to eradicate this harmful environmental phenomenon.
- Integrating drones’ operation into the operational procedures of the law-enforcement entities.
- Reduce costs related to detection, monitoring and cleaning of illegal landfills.
Project manager: Antonio Zilli, Distretto Tecnologico Aerospaziale Scarl, antonio.zilli@dtscarl.it
Total Budget: 400.000€ (Italian consortium)
Project start: 01/03/2023
Duration: 18 months
For more information: antonio.zilli@dtascarl.it
Partner: Aerospace Technology District (Italy), University of Bari (Italy), High Lander (Israel), Syghtech (Israel)
Project co-funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation through the Israel-Italy “Joint Innovation Program” for Research and Development Cooperation in Industrial, Scientific and Technological fields in R&D
