Research Findings on Collision Avoidance between Drones and Aircraft in Airspace presented

The “Air-Take-Off” research project is developing approaches for the safe integration of unmanned aircraft systems into civil aviation. The findings are relevant, among other things, to the use of drones in disaster situations such as wildfires.

Drones open up a wide range of new possibilities for mobility and logistics concepts; at the same time, as their use increases, the importance of their safe integration into existing civil airspace grows. The “Air-Take-Off” research project therefore investigated how manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) can interact safely with one another and how potential conflicts in airspace can be avoided.

Air-Take-Off focused on developing solutions for detecting and localizing drones, as well as for automated conflict avoidance. The project examined various technical approaches to determine the position and flight behavior of aircraft as reliably as possible and to detect critical situations early on. The full project report will be presented upon the project’s completion in October.

“With Air-Take-Off, we were able to develop various building blocks for the safe interaction of manned and unmanned aircraft and test them under real-world conditions. With the help of these technologies, we can address a wide range of application scenarios and sustainably improve air traffic safety,”says Prof. Hartmut Fricke, holder of the Chair of Air Transport Technology and Logistics at the “Friedrich List” Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences and project leader.

Technologies for Safe Drone Operations

Part of the research focused on the cooperative detection of aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), such as drones, based on position information transmitted via standard transponders like Mode S or Remote Identification. In addition, methods for non-cooperative detection were investigated: camera systems can automatically detect and distinguish flying objects such as airplanes, drones, birds, or balloons and estimate their distance. Based on this air situation picture, a UAV has sufficient data at its disposal—thanks to the technology developed at TUD—to avoid other airspace users.

Applications in Disaster Management

Another focus was the development of an aircraft-based transport and deployment system for UAVs. In this system, a manned aircraft can transport a drone to a specific operational area and deploy it there. Such applications could be relevant, for example, in supporting aerial operations in hard-to-reach disaster areas—such as during wildfires and when transporting relief supplies to remote locations. This application concept also gave the project its name: Air-Take-Off.

Enabling Seamless Communication

The close-proximity operation of manned aircraft and unmanned drones requires reliable communication, which was also the subject of the research. To this end, the scientists compared various wireless connection technologies, including Wi-Fi and cellular networks. This is a crucial component, particularly for applications in disaster areas, where the reliability of the ground-based network can no longer be guaranteed. In such cases, the manned aircraft serves as an access point for the drone, as demonstrated using the 5G campus network.

Real-World Test Site at the Kamenz Airfield

The Kamenz airfield serves as an important test site for research into autonomous aerial mobility. Among other facilities, it features a mobile 5G campus network, a Competence Center for autonomous flight, and the TUD’s Cessna 172 research aircraft, which serves as a technology and test platform.

Background: “Air-Take-Off” Research Project

The “Air-Take-Off” research project runs from June 2024 to October 2026 and received a total of approximately 2.1 million euros in funding as part of the 2021–2027 EFRE/JTF research and development grant program. Participants included the Chair of Air Transport Technology and Logistics, which served as project leader, the Chair of Aircraft Engineering, and the Vodafone Chair for Mobile Communications Systems at TUD.

More highlights from the final presentation in Mobility Magazine