The SAFIR-Med project’s vision is to achieve safe, sustainable, socially accepted and socially beneficial urban air mobility.
SAFIR-Med represents all value chain actors and stakeholder as either project partner (ATC, USPs, operators, UAS manufacturers, cities) or formal associate partner (major customers, technology and service providers) at a representative international level.
Five unmanned UAV platforms (passenger eVTOL, hydrogen fuel cell VTOL, battery tiltwing VTOL, AED medical drone, X8 medical transport) are combined with manned aviation in real life exercises validating technology in real urban environment.
Technologies of all partners are leveraged to make use of the maximum number of U-space services towards the highest possible operational safety level, including advanced detect and avoid U-space service.
The demonstrations took place in the cities of Antwerp (BE), Aachen (DE) and Heerlen (NL), leveraging the MAHHL trans-border region, following a full de-risking exercise at the DronePort BVLOS test-facility in Sint-Truiden, Belgium.
The demonstration results were further virtually enhanced through large-scale simulations in order to test the maximum airspace capacity of the CONOPS. The project results were then further validated and made representable for the whole of the EU, by simulating demonstrations in two additional locations in Europe, namely Athens, Greece (South EU) and Prague, Czech Republic (East EU).
Lessons learnt were documented in a performance assessment and recommendations report, providing refinements to the current U-space architecture principles and creating measurable indicators for UAM which enable Smart Cities to include UAM in their transport roadmaps, support standardisation and thereby safety.
Finally, SAFIR-Med has made an important contribution to the EU healthcare system, by ensuring that future generations will continue to democratically have access to the best cure and care.
