Drone technology: a challenge in full development

Drone technology is evolving rapidly. In the Flying Forward 2020 project, Nalantis is one of the seven international partners combining their know-how. With European support, they are investigating  the conditions under which autonomous drones - for example for parcel delivery services - can operate in urban environments. 

"The biggest challenge is that a lot of facets have to come together in order to allow drones to perform tasks safely in the city," explains Ted Van Hoof of High Tech Campus Eindhoven. "And that is one of the important things we are going to demonstrate in this project: that a lot is technically possible, but that there are also some things that need to be developed to have multiple drones active in the same airspace at the same time."

During a demonstration at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, various applications were shown. Drones could, for example, support emergency services in quickly delivering a defibrillator to a patient in need. When a defibrillator is needed in a difficult-to-reach place, the emergency service notifies the drone and it immediately takes off to fly to the location. In this way, the defibrillator can be used rapidly to save a life. 

The control systems that will regulate the traffic of autonomously flying drones are in full development. Nalantis provides the software that allows drones to fly safely and according to the applicable regulations. "Nalantis' artificial intelligence is used to interpret the law in such a way that the drone's software system can process it," says Van Hoof. "The law is then translated into commands for the drone. Even better: if the law changes, those commands and thus the drone's behaviour change too." 

An exciting application of our language technology that is certain to develop even further in the future. Curious about more of our projects? Take a look at our blog.