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twelve o’clock, May 5, 2021 – 08:13
The project financed by the European Union for a new air traffic, with and without pilot, on the Dubai model, enters the implementation phase
of Gabriele Bojano
Take a taxi on the fly? Soon it will no longer be just a way of saying and what until now we considered science fiction in the space of a few years will become an alternative (and integrative) way of traveling. Welcome to the fantastic world of TindAir, (Tactical INstrumental Deconfliction And In-flight Resolution), the project funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 program which aims to experiment with new modes of air transport in urban areas, by means of drones, guaranteeing safety, privacy, integration with urban contexts and other modes of transport. The project engages a group of innovative companies and research laboratories from France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, coordinated by the French Innov’ATM, under the aegis of SESAR JU, the European partnership aimed at completely overhauling the airspace and its air traffic management system.
The project
The Italian realities that are part of the international consortium are two, both from Campania: the Cira (Italian Aerospace Research Center) based in Capua, and Issnova (Institute for Sustainable Society and Innovation), an independent, non-profit research institute founded in Italy in 2016 which is based in Naples. The other organizations participating in the consortium are: Innov’ATM, France; Onera (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Arospatiales), France; Pildo Consulting SL, Spain; Rockwell Collins France Sas, France; Skyports Limited, UK; Aerospace Valley, France; Fundacion Tecnalia Research & Innovation, Spain; Skybirdsview, France; Apsys, an Airbus company, France. TindAIR – explains the architect Gabriella Duca, president of Issnova – will carry out a series of practical demonstrations with drones of various types and sizes and with piloted aircraft. We will experiment the concrete operation of these systems, in urban contexts and in different situations, from emergency medical transport to freight flights, testing even extreme cases in real environments, such as reaching the maximum capacity of the airspace or emergency landings. All this with the support of artificial intelligence. It must also be said that TindAir takes one of the EU’s strategic objectives literally: to ensure that every citizen can move from any point (where he is) to another in the European Union, in no more than 4 hours.
The experiments
The first demonstrations are scheduled for 2022 in the suburban and urban areas of the French cities of Toulouse and Bordeaux. But test flights are not excluded, with or without pilots, even in Southern Italy, the Taranto-Grottaglie airport, for example, which is already the site of the trials of another project financed under the same call. The delivery of vaccines through the use of small drones has recently been experimented in Puglia. In short, the future is around the corner and the dual objective, on the one hand, to demonstrate that the acceptance of this new “traffic” in urban areas is possible, guaranteeing safety, reliability and protection and respecting the privacy of people and property; on the other hand, to show how this new and complex urban air mobility system can be suitably integrated with existing manned aviation and air traffic control. We are proud to participate in this ambitious project – adds Duca – which aims at experimenting innovative, apparently futuristic and futuristic connection and transport systems: in reality much more concrete and realistic than one can imagine. It is no coincidence that in Dubai there is already a drone-taxi service for direct connections between luxury hotels and the airport. Meanwhile, new types of aircraft are arriving on the market: increasingly automated vehicles, also remotely piloted, capable of satisfying the demand for alternative modes of transport in large cities, also in order to reduce urban traffic, noise and emissions. CO2. We are perhaps not faced with what may one day be the alternative to the old expensive public service bus but something that is very close. Which will facilitate and above all speed up citizens in their movements even for small stretches.
May 5, 2021 | 08:13
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