Biological samples and biomedical products delivery along routes not easily accessible by ordinary roads using vertical take-off drones equipped with electric propulsion with a very low ecological and acoustic impact.
This is the aims of the test, successfully concluded today, designed and undertaken by Leonardo, Telespazio and Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, in collaboration with ENAC (National Civil Aviation Authority). Rehearsals took place between the 19 and 22 October. The drone transported sanitary material flying near Rome, between two sites of the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital which are more than 32 km away from each other: from the S. Marinella collection centre to the Palidoro analysis centre and vice versa, using an automatic control mode beyond the operator’s visual line of sight (BVLOS).
The flight's preparation
The test involved the use of Telespazio's cloud-based T-DROMES digital platform, which allows the provision of end-to-end services: from planning to conducting the mission of a drone, up to the processing of data acquired by the on-board sensors.
Through this solution, Telespazio can manage drone fleets belonging to several operators, allowing the end user to access to drones advantages solving the issue to manage the overall complex safety and regulatory workflow aspects that are fully managed by Telespazio solution. Thanks to T-DROMES, BVLOS and complex mission scenarios will be allowed to guarantee suitable level of safety, as well as the interface of the regulatory authority and relevant UTM systems.
With T-DROMES, Telespazio has implemented a “Drone as a Service” (DaaS) business model that covers, through a an integrated approach, design, planning, management and execution activities of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) missions for dedicated operations and specific application needs.
Drone missions can be managed automatically by T-DROMES throughout all the operations phases. In particular, the platform provides drone status monitoring in the pre-operational phase, during the mission and at the end of the mission; mission planning covering all the mission design functionalities, including the interface with the Regulation Authority Systems and necessary risk assessments. In addition, T-DROMES can provide mission execution, for automatic remote management of the UAS mission through tracking and command and control functions; mission monitor and analysis, both during the mission execution and for post-analysis purposes, including telemetry of the payload; Data Exploitation and Management, up to the most suitable user experience for the specific mission, including AI applications for actionable information extraction and generation (from video and any type of imaging sensor).
T- DROMES provides high levels of mission safety, being able to manage a hybrid connectivity system (satellite and terrestrial 4G/LTE, and 5G in the future) that ensures the availability and resilience of the communication channel globally through COM-BOX devices, which can be installed onboard drones.
The benefits guaranteed by the use of the T-DROMES platform span a wide range of vertical sectors, such as drone delivery, infrastructure management, smart farming, law enforcement, and emergency management.
The Drone during the flight test
As part of the experiment, the drone operators tested the U-Space geo-awareness and strategic deconfliction services provided by the D-FLIGHT platform, set up in 2018 by ENAV (the company that manages civil air traffic in Italy) together with Leonardo and Telespazio.
Thanks to the services that will be progressively made available by D-FLIGHT, it will be possible for traditional aviation and thousands of drones to coexist in the Italian airspace as drones will be entrusted with the most diverse tasks in the future. D-FLIGHT is confirmed as one of the first operational U-Spaces in Europe.
Telespazio's T-DROMES Team