The City of Helsinki’s innovation company, Forum Virium Helsinki, has launched a half-year-long pilot to study interferences in the satellite-based GNSS positioning signals that drones rely on. The focus is on helping the city and the authorities understand when and where any interference occurs.
Knowing where drones are at all times is vital for them to follow their intended routes. If the positioning signal gets lost, most smaller drones will return to their take-off spot and not land at the place where they were going.
Some more advanced commercial drones have visual positioning systems to aid navigation, but this is a new technology and not yet a common practice.
Initial observations suggest that while drones flying at lower levels tend to experience less interference, those at higher altitudes are more affected.
Forum Virium Helsinki has installed advanced sensors to monitor the lower airspace to obtain more detailed information on the phenomenon. The locations will allow effective monitoring of the satellite signals across the city.
Checking the Security of the Air Space
The project is expected to produce a valuable dataset revealing when and where interference with positioning signals happens. As drones become increasingly common in urban environments for various purposes, Helsinki is working towards a safe lower airspace in a managed and coordinated way.
“We are currently in the early stages of learning about this issue in low urban airspace. We are now receiving data from the sensors and analysing it,” explains technical specialist Jukka Alander from Forum Virium Helsinki.
The Finnish company Sensoripaja provided the technology for this project, which is funded by the air mobility project CITYAM. The five sensors are located at altitudes between 50 and 100 metres. The project equips cities with tools to improve airspace management in dealing with emerging urban air mobility and scaling drone operations.
Once Forum Virium Helsinki and the city clearly understand the pilot results, they will share this information and discuss potential solutions with key national authorities and institutes, including the National Land Survey of Finland and the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency.
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