Leonardo selected by ENAV as an industrial partner for the management of drone air traffic in Italy

Leonardo, head of a team with the subsidiary Telespazio and IDS - Ingegneria Dei Sistemi, was selected by ENAV, the national company that manages civilian air traffic in Italy, as an industrial partner for the development of an air traffic control system drones and for the provision of related services.

In detail, ENAV will establish a new company for the development of a Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Traffic Management (UTM) platform and related services, including technical maintenance, which will have 60% of the share capital, while the remaining 40% will be held by the industrial team led by Leonardo.

The UTM platform will enable the integration of multiple technologies for the safe movement of cooperating remotely piloted aircraft - i.e. registered, authenticated and identified - in civil airspace, as well as for their pre-flight and in-flight surveillance, support mission planning, emergency management, flight data recording.

The ability to provide the UTM service is the prerequisite for ensuring the safety of drone flight outside the line of sight and represents a turning point for the opening of new markets based on their use. The sector is destined, in fact, to grow exponentially in the next few years, with estimates showing seven million drones for recreational use and another four hundred thousand used for commercial purposes from here to 2035 only in Europe.

Leonardo is a key player in both the Air Traffic Management sector, with numerous radar systems and control centers installed all over the world, and in remote piloting systems. In this context the company has developed capacities, proprietary technologies and services based on drones, with collaborations in the main national and European programs. In the project with ENAV will have the task of coordinating the industrial team and the responsibility of system design as a System Integrator and the development of most software services, ensuring adequate levels of cyber protection.

The role of Telespazio (Leonardo 67%, Thales 33%) will be to integrate the platform with value-added solutions based on both the European satellite navigation systems EGNOS and Galileo and on Earth observation (georeferencing) and satellite telecommunication solutions. Telespazio will also coordinate the maintenance of the platform.

The role of IDS will be to design and implement the UTM-Box component, a key element of the UTM platform, and to contribute to the development of "ground" software services.

Leonardo selected by ENAV as an industrial partner for the management of drone air traffic in Italy