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The Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) is putting nearly $12 million toward demonstrations and studies on drone traffic management in accordance with the EU’s plans.
It just doesn’t know where yet.
SESAR JU aims to co-finance between five and 10 demonstration sites in cities across the EU, and it is calling for proposals to determine where. The goal, as per the EU’s U-space plan, is to show how unmanned vehicles can be safely operated in rural, suburban and even busy urban environments, and can coexist in the sky with manned aircrafts without issue, allowing a wider scope of drone missions to be unrestricted.
The deadline for application submissions is May 15, 2018. The EU’s European Commission hopes for the U-space program to be in place by 2019, with services like registration, geo-fencing and electronic identification.