Dronecloud recently announced that it was awarded a 5-year deal to provide Flight Management Systems (FMS) for Network Rail’s growing drone operation. The deal delivers safety and efficiency for the drone operations of today while paving the way for Network Rail to embrace the opportunities offered by future drone technology such as Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and Autonomous flight.
Dronecloud & Network Rail worked together to extend the rapidly expanding features within the Dronecloud platform to all drone users (commercial or recreational) planning to fly over or near the Network Rail Line infrastructure. The output of this close collaboration is a simple to use digital flight approval process built in to Dronecloud.
For drone flights that come within 50 metres of the Network Rail’s line network, they request that operators submit flight plan for approval. It’s a quick and easy process requiring basic flight details and risk assessment. The tools and templates to do this are built into Dronecloud with an intuitive step-by-step workflow guiding you along. Approvals are typically given with 24 hours.
This is the UK’s first airspace approval platform to digitally engage infrastructures owners with drone end-users for direct approval. The system has proven hugely successful for both Network Rail and drone operators and acts as the perfect Blue Print for Infrastructure and other bodies who are looking to better manage the safety and control of airspace.
The future of drone airspace approval will be dynamic, real-time and part of a wider, more integrated Unified traffic management service. To get there, Dronecloud are requesting help and engagement of similar infrastructure owners such as airports and aerodromes etc. In fact any entity who has a growing need to improve visibility of the drone flights that are occurring in and around their assets.
About Dronecloud
Dronecloud is making unified airspace a reality by integrating drones, flight planning, UTM and U- Space Services into a scalable ‘Enterprise Ready SaaS’ solution. Dronecloud unlocks Beyond Visual Line of Sight, Real-Time Deconfliction, Digital Flight Approvals & Autonomy for complex drone operations. The system is built around centrally managed teams, quality assurance, safety and audit frameworks. Larger enterprises can setup and manage curated networks of sub-contractors.
Our clients range from national asset managers (such as Network Rail) to Construction & Engineering companies as well as growing drone operations looking to improve operational efficiency and connect with larger enterprises as sub-contractors.
Dronecloud is UTM and drone agnostic, driven by an open standards-based approach to collaboration with key industry partners to deliver maturity to our rapidly evolving industry.
With this approach and Dronecloud as the central core of the integrated U-Space, we aim to remove the separation of manned and unmanned airspace and pave the way for Last-Mile deliveries and drone taxi services in congested urban environments.
Recent UK Government funding through Innovate UK’s Future Flight Challenge will ensure that Dronecloud has the innovation project reach to achieve its ambitions.
Source: Press Release