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78 M uch of commercial UAV development over the past few years has focused on last-mile delivery capabilities. Technologies such as heavy-lift electric motors, lightweight airframe materials, unmanned traffic management (UTM) and precision navigation systems have all advanced to enable secure aerial transportation of goods, potentially through urban airspace. In early 2020, engineers from the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) tested these technologies in a practical use case. Through funding from the EIT Digital innovation organisation, and in a first for the country of Sweden, a UAV (carrying a payload of fast food) has been flown autonomously and beyond visual line of sight over the city of Linkoping. The project was led by RISE programme manager Andreas Gising, research engineer Rasmus Lundqvist, research programmer Lennart Ochel and drone technician/operator Joel Nordahl. It was conducted in partnership with the University of Trento and the Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) research institute, both in Italy, as well as data analytics firm Bright Cape in the Netherlands. “This BVLOS flight was part of a larger project aimed at optimising a major warehouse and its processes through AI and autonomous vehicles,” Gising says. “It consisted of several modules that were tracked and coordinated via FBK’s planning and scheduling software, which accounts for company trucks and stock, the University of Trento’s automated forklift vehicles, and our UAVs as well as human staff.” The end-point of the warehouse operation will be a ‘drone dock’, where packages will be offloaded by forklift UGV or worker to a UAV for last-mile delivery. Some pre-drone dock parts of the operation are still in development, but with all the UAV-centric modules ready, Gising and his colleagues sought to prove their part of the project in Swedish urban airspace. Researchers have demonstrated the ability to transport goods by UAV in an urban setting and beyond line of sight. Rory Jackson reports City haul February/March 2020 | Unmanned Systems Technology The delivery tested UAV technologies such as heavy-lift motors and precision navigation systems over the Swedish city of Linkoping