FREQUENTIS and Robots Expert to strengthen cooperation on U-space technologies in Finland and Estonia

Leading air traffic management (ATM) systems provider, Frequentis, and Finnish drone advisory specialist, Robots Expert, have signed an agreement for the delivery of U-space (unmanned airspace) related solutions in Finland and Estonia. Robots Expert will support Frequentis in both countries with the aim of co-creating and implementing the next level of digital concepts to support the safe use of drones in the shared airspace. Both parties remain neutral and independent.

The ability for both manned and unmanned air traffic to operate safely in the shared airspace hinges on the timely and reliable sharing of high-quality mission-critical data. To support this, Robots Expert seeks to accelerate the trend towards a fully digitalised airspace by helping Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), airport operators, cities, and other stakeholders to gain easier access to leading technology and solution providers. Frequentis ATM solutions provide functionality to support ANSP’s, embracing digitalisation, virtualisation, and innovation.

The Frequentis Flight Information Management System (FIMS) has recently been successfully tested in a real environment at the first two airport towers in Norway, supporting the countries future drone strategy. Avinor Air Navigation Services (ANS) is working with Frequentis to implement the unmanned traffic management (UTM) system at 18 airport towers in total, allowing Avinor ANS to open Norwegian airspace to commercial drone use. It includes an operator portal including a fleet management system and web and mobile flight planning application. In addition, Frequentis has demonstrated the successful use of the FIMS, which is compatible with all UTM players, during the SESAR JU Gulf of Finland (GOF) U-space research project in 2019.

“Robots Expert focuses on helping organisations to adopt and endorse drone use to benefit both business and society”, says Tero Vuorenmaa, Robots Expert CEO. “We identified Frequentis as a leader in the field of integrating manned and unmanned air traffic management and are proud to represent their U-space solutions in Finland and Estonia. The cooperation with Frequentis opens up new possibilities to scale up any business idea from concept to deployment.”

The pair aim to jointly engage different stakeholder groups ranging from ANSPs, airport operators, public safety agencies, city councils, drone operators, to general and state aviators, to improve support for the co-existence of manned and unmanned traffic, while supporting their separate interests.

“Drones are becoming more and more important for business and society; as the use cases increase so does the urgency for solutions that will accelerate their safe integration into the airspace”, says Guenter Graf, Frequentis Director of New Business Development. “By combining our strengths in aviation systems with the in-depth drone experience and knowledge of Robots Expert, we intend to accelerate the adoption of U-space solutions in Estonia and Finland.”