Flying Forward 2020 Project to Start its First Demonstrations of Autonomous Drones on High Tech Campus Eindhoven

The demonstrations involve surveillance of campus grounds, building monitoring and last-mile deliveries.

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands, March 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- /PRNewswire/ -- 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 continued 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 kilometre in Europe. The organisation 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 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 last-mile delivery of goods such as meals, packages and Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to the rural part of campus.

According to Ted van Hoof, Urban Air Mobility Project Manager at High Tech Campus Eindhoven: "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." 

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. For more information about the demonstrations taking place on HTCE, go to https://www.hightechcampus.com/ff2020. For media inquiries about FF2020, please get in touch with Nathy Ercol at nathy@digie.expert.

About Flying Forward 2020

Flying Forward 2020 (FF2020) is a three-year research and innovation project funded by the European Union, under grant agreement number 101006828. The project focuses on developing a new Urban Air Mobility (UAM) ecosystem by incorporating this new form of mobility within the geospatial data infrastructure of cities. FF2020 is creating an entire state of the art geospatial UAM ecosystem. It includes a governance model and framework, a regulatory framework, a geospatial digital infrastructure, a Digital Toolbox, an Identity of Things (IDoT) scheme, and several interoperability frameworks. The solutions developed during the project will be tested in five living labs across Europe: Eindhoven, Milan, Zaragoza, Tartu and Oulu. For more information, visit www.ff2020.eu. 

Media Contact:

Nathy Ercol
nathy@digie.expert
+31 6 19807149