Drones that deliver packages, fly over urgent medical supplies or inspect buildings in the city. Before drones can really fly through the airspace in large numbers, there must be an air traffic control system for unmanned aircraft (U-Space). Royal NLR is testing the predecessor of such a system together with European project partners. The first results are promising: recently conducted test flights as part of the European AMU-LED project went smoothly.
At the beginning of August, a number of demonstration flights were carried out over Amsterdam as part of AMU-LED, the first of a series of test flights in the Netherlands. Various scenarios were carried out during these demonstration flights, each time involving different technological and procedural aspects. The lessons learned thereby shape the eventual UAM ecosystem. Public acceptance is a common thread through the demonstrations: how do the residents of a city experience the presence of drones in the public space, from the point of view of safety, privacy, noise nuisance or visual disturbance?