Airside operations
Drone Delivery Canada’s cargo drone took its first flight from EIA in December 2021.
with NAV CANADA, which operates Canada’s civil air navigation system, to create new approvals and safety procedures to make drone flights possible. Its first drone trial took place in a landfill 7km from the airport, and used geofencing to ensure that drones on the site could only operate within set GPS coordinates. EIA and its partners then spent months testing those boundaries, before moving to a testing site closer to the airport.
From there, EIA began on-site testing, on the ground side of the airport, away from any aircraft, and progressed from there until ultimately it has been able to run drone operations within 150m of an active runway. In order to maintain safety, the same geofencing protocols are in place to make sure a drone doesn’t stray off path. Every drone is also controlled by a pilot and a co-pilot, and monitored by a NAV CANADA control tower. “They follow a flight plan like everything else,” says Keehn. “It’s extremely regulated, extremely controlled, but still able to operate. Safety is our top priority as an airport.”
While this presents challenges for the various stakeholders involved around airport airspace, it offers far more obstacles when looking to allow drones to operate beyond an airport’s perimeter, or in the case of cargo delivery, for example, to allow for drones to seamlessly enter and exit an airspace. Such ‘beyond visual line of sight’ operations create a slew of new issues for operators to overcome.
“When it comes to the beyond visual line of sight integration, I think there needs to be way more flexibility than ATC offers today,” says Diestelkamp. “Air traffic today is just as rigid as it gets – for good reasons, but it’s very conservative.” It’s also, he would argue, behind modern technology in many ways. And that poses a problem for drone integration, particularly for international airports, when you implement a standard for integration that you can’t achieve in isolation. Airlines and pilots from different regions will ultimately need to be acting off the same playbook when dealing with drones, and for that, a more flexible and dynamic form of air traffic management will be required.
$45.5bn
Estimated value of the global drone transportation and logistics market by 2027, rising from $12bn in 2020. Business Wire
20
Canada’s gateway to the north This was one of the challenges faced by EIA, after it signed an agreement with Drone Delivery Canada (DDC) and Air Canada back in October 2019 to develop the world’s first airport-based drone delivery centre. Flashforward to 3 December 2021, when a Sparrow drone from DDC flew from the EIA Airport Operations Facility to a site in Leduc County – Canada’s first drone airport-based delivery operation. Drones will soon be carrying commercial cargo packages from EIA on behalf of clients Ziing Final Mile and Apple Express.
Airspace around all Canadian airports is highly restricted, and so EIA and DDC spent months working
The DDC cargo drones follow a pre-programmed flight path, and are observed by a control centre in Toronto that can take control of the drone remotely if needed. When with EIA airspace, two pilots will be on ground to take control, just as with other drone operations on-site. Ultimately, all of EIA’s advances with drones are due to the solid foundation it’s built through partnerships with other organisations in the Canadian aviation industry. Keehn attributes this to the culture of innovation in EIA and Edmonton as a region, and the work Edmonton does through its Sustainability Campus, which is where the DDC cargo drones first originated as an idea. “When you start to allow people to explore new paradigms, you attract innovation, right?” he says. “Innovation begets innovation.” From there, EIA’s work with partners like the federal and provincial governments, and the various companies mentioned previously, along with Transport Canada, Alberta Transportation and Aerium Analytics, have been key in its drone integration process. The challenges facing airport operators who wish to implement drones are numerous, and to overcome them, Diestelkamp believes that the “biggest thing is getting everyone to talk the same language”, to which Keehn agrees wholeheartedly. When that works, however, as EIA has demonstrated, the potential that drones offer for airports is hard to dispute. All that remains, now, is for the rest of the world to catch up. And with the pace of development for drone technology, that’s likely to be sooner rather than later. “I mean, it’s going to sound cheeky, but the sky’s the limit for drones. […] It’s just it’s amazing how it’s evolving, and how quickly,” says Keehn. “It’s exhilarating to see this happening on our watch – while we’re here to actually be able to participate, and it’s just an exciting place to be.” ●
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
EIA
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