Testbädd UAV Västervik

Today, we are facing many global societal challenges. These challenges range from climate change, satisfying a growing world populations need for food, preserving and protecting water sources, developing production and jobs to transport systems where fossil fuel is replaced with renewable alternatives. All these goals are described in the UN 2030 agenda. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Systems (UAV/UAS or Drones) are considered being one way to solve many of these problems, due to their inspection and early observation abilities of potential threats to crops, forests, environment and infrastructure.

Rescue operations, firefighting and organ- and medicine transports to islands or remote areas have all been tested but are still in their initial phase. Many of the technologies used have already been developed, but they must be designed as a system of systems adjusted to the requirements used in unmanned flight and light weight systems. Furthermore, the regulatory systems and business models must harmonize the technological possibilities and the different environments where these are going to be used. Because of this, the test bed area in Västervik municipality, measuring 40 x 60km, is very valuable as it contains all common landscapes and land uses present in Northern Europe.

This offers unique possibilities to safely test and develop the different systems needed to establish safe and economically sound operation with the UAV´s. Both the land area and the airspace are monitored with Traffic Management operated by WABEMA, following the Drone Center Sweden (dronecentersweden.se) concept.

The DCS welcomes both Swedish and international customers for tests Beyond Line of Sight and Higher and Autonomous in a different way when compared to most other UAV test sites in the world. Besides this, we can offer tests in a region containing most common European landscapes and land uses, all in one, coherent test site.

The Vinnova UAV testbed in Västervik (also known as “TUVA”) refers to both the entire project and the virtual testbed, which consists of both Swedish and international collaborating partners. Through TUVA, we have managed to participate in several joint projects, such as the EU AFarCloud agricultural project. We are also working as part of a consortia in an Inter-reg project together with other European testbeds, blue light authorities (rescue services, ambulance and police) and environmental protection authorities and organizations.

Our goal is to link the different systems required to build safe, cost effective and useful Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to sensors and navigation systems. Connected to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), UAV/UAS could offer solutions to many important and challenging problems. With support from the cellular mobile infrastructure, there are many possibilities for inspection of forests, crops, railways, power production and power lines. Furthermore, autonomy and positioning, UAV navigation, communication, Control and Communication (C3) systems and delivery of sensor information and images could also be aided. Safe operation is also dependent on good geographical maps and data that can be used to support both the navigation and planning of UAV supported missions.    

Supporting agriculture with UAV/UAS/ICT enables more effective farming, thus resulting in more and healthier food, sustainable development of forestry, hydroculture and bigger revenue, whilst still lowering the environmental impact. This testbed, supported by Vinnova and hosted by RISE, is an important component for development of these new and innovative technologies. It´s partners include the Swedish Defense Research (FOI), Swedish Agricultural University (SLU), RISE, SAAB/UMS Skeldar, Spary Embedded, Wabema, Västervik municipality, Linköpings Universitet (LiU) and customers like the Wallenberg Autonomous Systems Project (WASP).

Not affected by any civil or military restriction zones for air operations, this 40 x 60km sparsely populated area in south east Sweden is the perfect place for this testbed. The area houses many types of common European landscape, wetlands, water bodies, coastal area, agriculture, forests, built up and urban areas, industries, harbors, railways etc. These can all be used for safe and convenient development and test of UAV´s and services connected to them.

As Västervik is providing their municipality owned, 1199m long, paved airfield, the testbed can easily be reached by international customers and partners that otherwise wouldn´t have access to test their systems on high altitude (1500m), beyond line of sight (BLOS) and autonomously. These would normally be the main bottlenecks that stand in the way of safe and reliable testing of drones for delivery and inspection of agriculture, forestry, energy production and distribution, transport sector, infrastructure and rescue services.

Besides this, we offer development of sensor systems used for both controlling and surveying single and a suggested big number of flying vehicles in the future. Development of flight operations is another important area for R&D, because of its importance to enable safe and reliable UAV operations and contributions to future UTM systems.

We also provide different GNSS (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS etc.) transponders with support from mobile cellular system masts or other supporting satellites; a critical part of development of systems. Furthermore, we already offer software (Beta version) that ensures communication with cellular systems and between groups of UAVs in a safe manner.

Together with other main actors such as RISE, Telia, Ericsson, SAAB, T2-Data, T-Kartor, Västervik municipality and actors within forestry and agriculture, the TUVA project management is heading a Vinnova UDI application. Together, we have several technical solutions (prototype, patent pending and suggestions for world standards in GSMA) to make precise positioning, navigation and communication infrastructure possible.

Another important area is development of new, powerful, lightweight and energy efficient Radar, LiDAR, Infrared, Hyper-spectral and Gamma sensors. The flying vehicles must also deliver data to the users and other parties for image coding, big data analysis, machine learning and sensor data fusion for them to be included in decision support systems and automated services used for alerts in order to avoid hazardous situations. In order to enable safe flight, planning of operations and usage as a reference base for high resolution sensor systems, the UTM system must be supplemented with maps where the geometry is correct in plane and projection as well as in elevation.

As Västervik municipality has support from the Swedish telecom operator Telia to build a “Cellular Airspace Development – UAS Innovation Zone”, testbed-users will have access to the latest technologies in tele-communication in a cellular innovation zone situated in the same area as the UAV. In order to support this, RISE Sics East have applied for an UDI project at Vinnova.

This is of mutual interest for both the UAV community as well as for telecom. This testbed will be of interest for the whole telecom, UAV and ICT businesses, as well as for important industrial parties. Besides this, the results will have high positive impact on food production and sustainable forestry, thus contributing to solving challenging environmental issues!

Come and test your drone, sensor or command and control system at DCS!

http://www.dronecentersweden.se/