Flying Forward 2020 Project to Start its First Demonstrations of Autonomous Drones on High Tech Campus Eindhoven.
EINDHOVEN, Netherlands, March 29, 2022 – Flying Forward 2020 (FF2020), an innovation and research project focusing on Urban Air Mobility solutions and funded by the European Union, will initiate autonomous drone demonstrations on High Tech Campus Eindhoven (HTCE). In the last year, FF2020 has been developing solutions that will be tested in five living labs, starting in Eindhoven and continuing in Milan, Zaragoza, Tartu, and Oulu – enabling an open dialogue with stakeholders, end-users, and citizens to improve upon processes, results, and impact.
Demonstrations on High Tech Campus Eindhoven will run from the end of March until September of this year. A campus-based ecosystem of over 250 high-tech companies, HTCE is one of twelve FF2020 consortium partners and is considered by many to be the smartest square kilometer in Europe. The organization is home to more than 12,000 innovators, researchers, and engineers who develop new technologies and applications to help solve social problems and challenges and successfully bring them to the market.
About the objective of their participation in the project, Paul van Son, Innovation Manager at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, stated: “As a campus, we create the perfect environment for innovation for both our residents and our suppliers. With the Flying Forward 2020 project, we develop both: a living lab for high-tech companies related to the drone industry, and a pilot environment for our suppliers to experiment with the use of drones for the services they provide on campus. Besides this, it helps us create the digital infrastructure needed for the development of spacial web applications, an enabler for future Metaverse developments.”
Five use cases will be tested on campus. The first one focuses on security, for which drones will be used to conduct surveillance of the premises to assist security personnel. The second use case involves building monitoring by drones, which will scan and inspect buildings to assess their condition. The other three use cases relate to the last-mile delivery of goods such as meals, packages, and Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to the rural part of campus.
“HTCE is the first living lab in this research and innovation project to perform tests and demonstrations. It is also one of the first sites in Europe that is experimenting with Urban Air Mobility and experiencing multiple drones flying autonomously to perform specific tasks. At this point, any knowledge we gain from these tests will contribute to making a step forward that will benefit others in this field as well. I hope that the use cases on campus will help improve UAM solutions so that European citizens can see drones flying above them safely and the added value of these advancements to their everyday lives within the next decade or so.”
According to Ted van Hoof, Urban Air Mobility Project Manager at High Tech Campus Eindhoven
In June 2022, FF2020 will hold an event in the city of Eindhoven to showcase the results achieved by their first living lab. Members of the project will present the innovative solutions being developed within the consortium, and networking opportunities will be provided to a delegation of the Dutch Urban Air Mobility ecosystem and press. Ultimately, it will be a day to celebrate a vital project milestone made possible by the project partners, including High Tech Campus Eindhoven.
To learn more about the FF2020 project, events, or to become part of the UAM ecosystem, please visit www.ff2020.eu.
SOURCE Flying Forward 2020