We were surprised to discover this bizarre Spanish language press release buried on the website of a university in the tip of Spain. (See Google translation below).
The Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) is leading Bubbles, a European research project whose main objective is to ensure the safe integration of drones in airspace.
Professor Juan Vicente Balbastre, researcher at the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (ITACA) at UPV and coordinator of the project, points out that the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), such as drones,
“It has grown dramatically, and is expected to continue to do so in the coming years. Parcel delivery, public safety and entertainment are just a few of its potential uses. There are going to be more and more drones and their economic impact is going to be very high, but it is necessary to guarantee their safe integration into airspace ”.
U-Space benefits and risks
And is that the use of UAS carries some risks, especially in densely populated areas, whether terrestrial, with accidents or incidents in which UAS, people, surface vehicles, buildings and / or infrastructure may be involved; or air, related to manned aircraft and collisions between UAS. There are also privacy risks, which may arise from the misuse of data collected by the aircraft, and security risks – cyber attacks, terrorists by transporting explosives, etc.
“Although the benefits of using UAS are much greater than the risks,” says Balbastre, “it is necessary to face the latter so that the former can be fully achieved. For this, the European Commission, through SESAR JU , proposes the design of a set of new services, based on a high level of digitization and automation of functions and specific procedures, aimed at supporting safe and efficient access to space of large amounts of UAS, which is known as the U-Space. “
Safety bubbles
One of the main objectives of Bubbles is the generation of a new advanced service for the management of aircraft separation in U-Space, aimed at complex operations in areas with heavy traffic. This service will define “safety bubbles” around the UAS and develop procedures to prevent those bubbles from touching each other.
To formulate and validate the concept of this advanced separation management service at U-Space, Bubbles will define the basic elements from which it will be built, describing how to assemble and operate them.
“Bubbles will develop algorithms to calculate the risk of collision of unmanned aerial systems”, indicates the UPV researcher, “taking into account all the sources of risk involved, which will allow establishing minimums and separation methods so that a level can be maintained safety defined in terms of overall probability of collision. “
Likewise, Bubbles “will also investigate the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to support separation management, both for centralized and distributed systems. In addition, it will contribute to the standardization of the U-Space by writing the performance specifications required for CNS systems (Communications, Navigation and Surveillance) based on AI and involved in the provision of the Separation Management service, “says Balbastre.
On the UPV’s part, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Automation and Informatics (ai2) and the Department of Cartographic Engineering, Geodesy and Photogrammetry also participate in the project.
2.5 years of project and 1.6 million euros of financing
The project, financed by the European Union through Horizon 2020 and SESAR JU with more than 1.6 million euros, has started this month in May and will run until the end of 2022.
Led by UPV, Bubbles also includes the University of Coimbra, the Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) and Indra, an air traffic management company.
End of press release.
The programme referred to on the SESAR Website is also suitably vague:
BUBBLES aims to formulate and validate the concept of a U-space advanced (U3) ‘separation management service’. It will develop algorithms to compute the collision risk of UAS, allowing to define separation minima and methods, so that a safety level stated in terms of overall probability of collision can be defined and maintained.
[No mention of deliverables -Ed.]
Apart from that we know that the whole shebang costs €1.9M and keeps some people off the streets until October 31st 2022 and that sharing the loot are:
Universitat Politècnica de València
Universidade de Coimbra
Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
EUROCONTRO [think they mean EUROCONTROL – Ed.]
Indra Sistemas
UK readers will be delighted to know that they have helped to finance this ‘fun in the sun’ without being invited to the party since they will sadly be unable to benefit from the musings of these sages thanks to Brexit….
Regular readers will remember our post from last week:
Droniq Launches UTM System in Germany
If a fellow EU country has a working system, can someone please explain why EU taxpayers should be paying academics for two years to think about a system…?
So maybe ‘Bubbles’ is a good name for the party after all – Champagne all round…!
Source: Press Release
For all I can read, this article complies with 3 sad criteria:
– It provides no reasonable argument but just a distaste for other´s success.
– It proves a complete lack of knowledge on how R+D programs work.
– It shows a rather smelly pro-Brexit position embellished with a resentment against anything EU.
I am not sure what UASVision is trying to do pubishing this biased opinion leaflet …but informing is not in the menu today.
You can do better UAS vision
Dear ‘Hackadrone’
The post asks questions.
Where is the evidence of ‘success’…?
The stated objectives of ‘Bubbles’ are at best flimsy and 2 and a half years is a long time for the commercial world to wait while academics mull over an issue which is urgent.
€1.6M is a lot of money – surely someone should be accountable..?
If you are able to explain how this R&D project works please do so – you seem to be well-informed…
‘Hackadrone’ and ‘Vexermail’ are ‘interesting’ choices of pseudonyms – we normally only allow comments from people who don’t try to hide their identity….your IP address is in Spain…would that be Valencia…?
Dear Editor
Not that I want to start a fight (I think you guys are doing a good job in general) and I really thought you would take my rightful critic in a more sporty way.
Since I believe you decided to go deeper in the hole, here are my comments to your replay:
“The stated objectives of ‘Bubbles’ are at best flimsy”
Therefore you are admitting now it is your opinion.
“2 and a half years is a long time for the commercial world to wait while academics”
That is very debatable and it is also your opinion.
“€1.6M is a lot of money”
Depending on what you pay for …but again also your opinion.
“If you are able to explain how this R&D project works please do so.”
That is not my job since I am only a reader who would rather have information to form my own opinion on the subject.
However, your job as editor is to verify what you publish and differentiating opinion from information.
As you put it yourself: surely someone should be accountable (on the information you provide)..?
“we normally only allow comments from people who don’t try to hide their identity….”
Interesting choice of argument coming from someone who is not identified anywhere in the article, refers to himself as “we” in the article and signs comments as “editor”
Just a note for big improvement: I am really shocked that you have abused your (I assume) priviliges in your web by posting an email address thus breaching the confidentiality imposed by the entry form for comments which literally states the following: “Your email address will not be published.”
I guess that alone could justify using pseudonyms and addresses you do not like (but in my opinion they are very cool)
Keep up with the good work …in general.
Dear Hackadrone,
Glad to learn that you appreciate our work despite our different views on ‘Bubbles’.
It was clear that this post might be controversial, since, as you have noticed, we tend to stick to posting news stories and avoid expressing an opinion.
What was upsetting about this story was the very discrete manner of the announcement and the lack of detail about the project.
We published a translation of the full press release plus the full description that is available on the SESAR website.
More detail would allow both of us to have an informed opinion…
Sorry to learn of your concern about your email being published, but as far as I can see we only mentioned your ‘name’ and not the full address….
One of the main reasons for starting this blog was to share information with the worldwide community and so to avoid people in different corners of the earth ‘re-inventing the wheel’ every time around. Bubbles appears to be doing just that…and being too late and expensive…
However, if you would like to author a post explaining more about your project then we would be happy to consider it for publication.
Thanks !
Russ
PS
You can find information about myself and all authors on the ‘Contributors’ page
Your “fun in the sun” describe perfectly your thinking. Will you write this kind of opinion piece if the Universities will be from lets say UK, France, Holland or Scandinavia?
Don’t waste your time, I’m from Spain
Yes absolutely, it’s the pertinence of the research and lack of transparency which is troubling.
I don’t mean to offend Spanish people – its the gap between the research and reality which is the issue.
Fully agree with the issue and the unneccessary waste of money, but cliches don’t help to advance. Thanks
I’m pretty sure that I saw the EU tender alert for this project some time back, it falling nicely into my automated search criteria for “drones” and unmanned vehicles” within the EU tendering system. Since it was an R&D exercise which was going to be very local, we clearly weren’t interested (we’re Australian).
However the press release obviously doesn’t spell out the deliverables for the project, nor is that the purpose of a press release; there is in fact measurable requirements at the end (Note; I didn’t save the documentation, but they would be retrievable from the EU tenders site).
It’s probably also sound from the EU’s perspective to have several “centres of excellence” (for want of a better description) providing alternative thought processes and algorithmic solutions to the whole UTS problem, as with anything.
Whether it’s a good use of xMillion Euro is up for debate, as is any expenditure of public money, but I agree that over two years is way too long to be of any relevance to the real world. This requirement was readily perceivable several years ago and this project should have been initiated some time ago.
That’s all just my two cents worth; you may assume the invoice is in the mail. Cheers.
Thanks Ken – can we put that on the tab…?