Visible light communication infrastructure for UAV’s “Innovation Challenge”

What a great event we had last week! In collaboration with Living Lab Schiedistrict, Unmanned Valley and High Delta, Orga organized an “Innovation Challenge” on ‘UAV Light communications infrastructure’.

Drones are increasingly being used around offshore constructions. Poor or insufficient communication between helicopter pilots, ground crew and drone pilots can then lead to unsafe situations. With the challenge, Orga wanted to contribute to promoting safety in air traffic. The challenge was to find a conceptual solution for communication between helicopter pilots, ground crew and drone pilots: how can light communication be used practically and functionally so that flight movements can be carried out safely and autonomous.

It was great to see how people from various companies, Schiedam municipality, universities and Orga staff were dedicated in working together. We appreciate the active participation and the valuable contribution from the participants in making the day full of inspiration and vibrant networking. Speakers Robin Provilij of AirHub, Andrei Badea of Delft University of Technology, Alexander Donkels of Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt – (DLR) clearly inspired the group as they integrated their input very effectively into the team ideas for innovation. The synergy between all participants resulted in a wide range of further to be explored innovative opportunities for the safety of future drone operations. We were happy to close the day with Frans Hamerslag, alderman of Schiedam, thanking Orga BV for the role it plays and has been playing in Schiedam for an impressive 50 years already. We would like to thank everyone for jointly making this challenge into a success!

Building on this challenge, Orga has taken the first steps in the past year to give substance to one of the issues identified during the challenge: recognizing light signals by drones; this is a complicated process for which good coordination between transmitter (Orga’s optical signal) and receiver (sensors on drone) is relevant.