Helping Hamburg to Pioneer Urban Drone Traffic

Drones are big business and are increasingly being used for professional and industrial applications. In major cities like Hamburg, Germany, regulating drone traffic is essential to avoid security hazards. As a member of the Urban UAV Traffic Efficiently Organized (UDVeo) project, NXP is providing expertise and technology to answer highly relevant questions, enabling Hamburg’s commercial drone air traffic to operate safely and securely: how can drones securely talk to other drones and connect to the infrastructure around them? How can drones be authenticated, giving them a unique ID?

Figure 1 The members of the UDVeo project receiving the funding project from Minister Scheuer

On February 14, 2020, German Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Andreas Scheuer, invited NXP to Berlin to receive a funding award for our participation in the UDVeo project. UDVeo is a government-funded research project with partners including the Ministry of Economics, Transport and Innovation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the German Aerospace Center and NXP. Jointly, we are developing a traffic management system for drones. NXP’s Mobile Robotics Team will provide and support the implementation of NFC technology, the EdgeLock™ SE050 secure element, as well as Drone-to-X communication hardware for pilot and drone registration.

When complete, the guidance system will secure and organize drone air traffic across the city. It will ensure that drone operators can easily register flights and help ensure all planned flights proceed without risk of collision. With NXP, the UDVeo project will provide flight planning and tracking, secure communication and the creation of a drone air traffic communication network.

From left to right: Andreas Scheuer, German Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure Andreas Scheuer, Matthias Wilkens, Gerald Peklar (both NXP)

From warehouse delivery and building inspection, to agricultural monitoring – as drones are becoming more commonplace their potential is expanding at a rapid pace. All of these use cases must incorporate high levels of safety and security for operation in public spaces. NXP’s CTO Mobile Robotics team is proud to be a trusted partner in helping to solve the complex issues of such a new and exciting form of commercial transport technology in Hamburg.

NXP entertains a group of true drone enthusiasts that created HoverGames, an interactive and challenging coding competition that unites talented developers across the globe to address some of the biggest challenges facing society. In the first HoverGames challenge on the topic Fight Fires with Flyers, drone hobbyists and coders were invited to build solutions that help firefighters in their duties. Check out HoverGames.com for further info and stay tuned – the winners of the first challenge and their exciting ideas will be announced shortly on the NXP blog!