TindAIR – a new European project for large-scale demonstrations on urban air mobility has been launched as the demand for the use of unmanned air vehicles (UAV) in urban settings grows.
TindAIR – Tactical Instrumental Deconfliction And In-flight Resolution – will ensure the unlimited, unrestricted and safe cohabitation of all airspace users in European skies. Companies and research laboratories from France, Italy, Spain and the UK have joined the project, which is being coordinated by Innov’ATM under the aegis of the SESAR Joint Undertaking.
TindAIR will carry out a series of large-scale demonstrations on urban air mobility, with a focus on strategic deconfliction. The new organisation has been launched in response to new aircraft types which are coming onto the market with alternative propulsion and new vehicle designs. The organisation will also meet the challenges associated with aircraft becoming automated and remotely piloted, such as flying taxis and drones.
Remote-piloted aircraft can meet demand for alternative transport in cities
Remote-piloted aircraft have the potential to meet the demand for alternative modes of transportation in large cities as well as meeting the challenge of reducing noise and CO2 emissions. Before lift-off, new air vehicles will need to be integrated safely into the skies alongside existing manned aviation and air traffic control.
The SESAR Joint Undertaking is pooling Europe’s resources and expertise to develop new operational concepts in the U-space, underpinned by existing and new technologies, on the safe and secure integration of drones. The TindAIR project will operate within this framework with the objective of demonstrating that the acceptance of new “traffic” in urban areas is possible, while ensuring the safety and respecting the privacy of people and property.
The aim is also to show how the new and complex environment can be integrated safely with existing manned aviation and air traffic control. The TindAIR consortium will operate a series of demonstrations covering a range of representative and operational user cases and featuring a combination of manned and unmanned aircraft to achieve this goal. Operational scenarios will address existing urban needs or compelling use cases, from medical emergency transport to a mix of freight and passenger flights, including extreme cases like sector saturation capacity and emergency landing.
Demonstrations expected to take place in 2022
The demonstrations will take place using aircraft of various types and capacities with varying levels of automation, all sharing the same volume of airspace. They are expected to take place in 2022 in suburban-urban areas of the French cities of Toulouse and Bordeaux, and will focus on strategic and tactical assistance to conflict detection and resolution. The aim will be to validate concepts of operations and target architecture for conflict detection and resolution function for all airspace users and will offer validated and experienced U-space services to the future users of these urban air mobility modes.
The demonstrations will also include a tactical conflict resolution service module embedding an artificial intelligence algorithm, which will can be integrated into the future U-space deployments. TindAIR is funded by the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
The consortium consists of the following organisations:
− Coordinator: Innov’ATM, France
− ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales), France
− Pildo Consulting SL, Spain
− ISSNOVA (Institute for Sustainable Society and Innovation), Italy
− Rockwell Collins France SAS, France
− Skyports Limited, United Kingdom
− CIRA (Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali SCPA), Italy
− Aerospace Valley, France
− Fundacion TECNALIA Research & Innovation
− Skybirdsview, France
− APSYS, an AIRBUS company, France
