Flying taxis Radar network for safe urban air traffic

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A fully digital sensor network including radar sensor is intended to monitor air traffic at vertiports with high precision in the future and ensure safe flight operations. Autonomous operation is also already planned.

At the 2024 Olympic Games, for the first time, people will be able to fly to the venues in flying taxis: Aviation companies plan to transport visitors of the games from the airport to the event venues using Electrical-Vertical-Takeoff-and-Landing systems, briefly eVTOL. The eVTOLs will take off and land at so-called Vertiports. Initially, the drone systems will be piloted by a human, with one passenger per flying taxi. In a few years, the systems are expected to fly autonomously – provided that society accepts it.

Safety is the top priority

An important aspect in this context is the safety of the Vertiports, which are intended for electrically powered, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. They are to be integrated on rooftops, in train stations, parking lots, or other urban structures. Vertiports must meet the highest safety requirements. Researchers at Fraunhofer FHR aim to contribute significantly to the safety of the new drone stops with a modular fully digital sensor network including a radar sensor, which can be adapted to the size of the respective Vertiport as needed.

"The nodes are fully digital, each sensor in the network operates completely autonomously. The sensors are not coordinated via a central computing unit; they network with each other on their own. They can independently locate and organize themselves. In terms of edge computing, each sensor has its own computing unit and knows the location of the others in the network," explains Oliver Biallawons, scientist of the interdisciplinary competence group "Civil Drone Systems" at Fraunhofer FHR in Wachtberg.

Sensors coordinate with each other

The transmission and reception tasks are distributed among the individual sensors, which coordinate with each other. The decentralized active and passive sensors, which are mounted on the ground, jointly scan the entire takeoff or landing site, as well as the airspace above it. Depending on the need, the network decides which sensor operates actively (transmitting and receiving) and which in a passive mode (receiving only). The more sensors the network includes, the larger the area under surveillance. If a sensor or radar node is removed or added, the radar network still operates flawlessly.

The key to self-organization and decentralized processing of the network is the connection of the individual nodes via wireless communication channels, which are integrated into the radar signal. The integration of network communication into the radar signal will allow it to seamlessly integrate into the future telecommunications infrastructure, thus representing an important milestone on the path to the fusion of full-fledged radar and telecommunications.

The radar network uses artificial intelligence

The unique feature of the radar network, which the researchers call the Civil Drone Systems (CDS) Network: Unlike test surveillance systems based on mobile communications, the system can also detect eVTOLs that do not have a corresponding communication device like a chip or tag on board. Furthermore, by using artificial intelligence, the security solution can not only detect obstacles blocking the entry and exit path but also classify them. That is, it is capable of classifying objects such as trees, birds, or drones. The radar network can even recognize the size of individual drones and how many rotors they are each equipped with.

The radar sensor technology is available as a demonstrator, but it still needs to be significantly miniaturized. "As urbanization progresses, it is inevitably necessary to move the transport systems into the air in the long run. This can only be achieved with the help of sophisticated safety systems for obstacle-free starting and landing like our modular, resilient network of low-emission, communicating radar nodes," says Oliver Biallawons. The system is not only suitable for Vertiports, but it could also monitor corridors in the future, through which transport drones move through cities.