Successful Drone Flight Trials at Heathrow Airport!

The trials were conducted within the geographical bounds of Heathrow Airport’s Flight Restriction Zone (FRZ) with the airspace controller responsible for granting flight authorisations through the NATS Non-Standard Flights application process (NSF) on-line portal. The primary aim of the trials was to demonstrate drone operations within the airports FRZ using an alternate UTM-based approval and deconfliction process, delivering operational benefits as well as improving situational awareness and safety with increased levels of automation and expedient turn-around times.

The two-week trial programme was based on Live-Virtual-Constructive (LVC) testing principles, progressively introducing complexity and capacity through live and simulated flight requests. Live flights were undertaken by Herotech-8 within the vicinity of a local golf club within the bounds of Heathrow’s FRZ whilst maintaining a safe distance from the airport's runway and normal flight operations. Synthetic drone and air traffic ‘challenges and conflicts’ were generated using a high-integrity ATC Synthetic Environment at Cranfield’s Digital Aviation Research Technology Centre (DARTeC).

The trials provided an excellent opportunity to explore several operational and safety benefits built into the Thales UTM powered by Astra through integrating Carmenta’s geospatial technology into the airspace management toolset. Carmenta UAS Services enabled enhanced levels of safety and situational awareness to be hosted within the UTM, providing real-time pilot line-of-sight confirmation and identification of emergency landing sites and collision risks, with safety buffer zones and compliant multi-objective deconflicted routing.

The trial outcomes will pave the way for a plethora of new features to be explored and introduced into drone traffic management systems that support safe and efficient BVLOS operations at scale in mixed-traffic environments and provide enhanced capabilities to monitor risks and regulatory compliance.