Multi-purpoSe Physical-cyber Agri-forest Drones Ecosystem for governance and environmental observation

The role of drones in different application areas is increasing rapidly despite the challenges in controlling the variety of risks related to drone operations, especially regarding open and specific categories of drones. Cyber-security breaches, physical safety and security hazards, as well as risks of human errors are increased due to incorporation of drones. Yet, the potential benefits are foreseeably substantial, as drones can make significant contributions to multiple field operations and processes by bringing in additional monitoring and activity-performing devices. Also, the regulation concerning drones is still new and by and large untried over the long term. New operators, new applications and new services built on drones’ capabilities are emerging at an ever-faster pace. New business ecosystems and operational processes are being elevated. The changing landscape creates many positive opportunities that can be captured to materialise drones’ potential as multi-purpose device. At the same time, drones are being integrated with new technology and supplied with increasing observation-making capabilities. The technological architecture is getting more complex, having implications on regulation needs, business prospects, and service offerings.

The strategic objective of SPADE project is to develop an intelligent ecosystem to address the multiple purposes concept in the light of deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs alias drones) to promote sustainable digital services for the benefit of a large scope of end users in sectors of crop production, forestry, and livestock. This includes individual UAV usability, UAV type applicability (e.g., swarm, collaborative, autonomous, tethered), UAV governance models availability and UAV generated data trustworthiness. Multi-purposeless will be further determined in the sensing dataspace reusability of trained AI/Machine Learning (ML) models, that will enable sustainability and resilience of the overall life cycle of developing, setting up, offering, providing, testing, validating, refining as well as enhancing digital transformations and ‘innovation building’ services in Forestry, Cropping and Livestock Farming. 3 Pilots Prototypes, one per domain, deploying 9 Test Cases combined with 2 Open Calls for up to 12 complementary small projects will contribute towards greater challenges of deforestation and sustainable farming.

Please visit the project website for more information: https://spade-horizon.eu/