Daniel García-Monteavaro ensures that innovation and digitisation with U-space are crucial for air transport systems

Nicolás Martín endorses the Startical project and analyses the changes coming to satellite navigation

ENAIRE took part in two round tables held in the Spanish Pavilion at Expo Dubai. The provision of air navigation services using satellites, as well as the U-Space airspace that urban air mobility will bring, are the topics that ENAIRE addressed at the event.

Nicolás Martín, the head of ENAIRE’s Navigation and Surveillance Division, spoke yesterday at the conference on future mobility entitled ‘ONE STEP FURTHER, TRANSPORT FROM SPACE’. In it, he explained why satellite navigation has revolutionised the provision of air navigation services.

As the greatest benefits of these systems, he noted their global coverage, the flexible use of airspace they make possible, and the advantage of using the same system for every phase of flight. Using these services greatly improves the safety and capacity of air navigation systems, improving costs, lowering the carbon footprint and increasing mobility and accessibility to urban areas.

ENAIRE has been involved in the deployment of EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) since its early days in the 1990s. It is a founding member of ESSP, the current provider of EGNOS services in Europe. Spain is also the country with the largest EGNOS infrastructure, which boosts the navigation signal of the satellites in the GNSS constellation so they can be used in aviation.

Nicolás also pointed out that ENAIRE, along with Indra, has created a company called STARTICAL to provide satellite communication and surveillance services. The project includes the deployment of a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites equipped with VHF voice and data communication systems and ADS-B stations for surveillance.

At the ‘INNOVATION AS THE KEY FOR TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY’ conference, Daniel García-Monteavaro, head of the Drone Business Development Department, presented ENAIRE’s plans for deploying U-Space airspace.

ENAIRE plans to develop and automate a digital drone platform (U-Space) in Spain that will get the company ready to provide U-Space services for the automated management of drone operations beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) in airspace volumes called ‘U-Space airspace’; and specifically, to centralise the management of CIS (Common Information Services), which are essential to safely support drone operations once the new European Regulation, which determined the requirements for this contract, enters into force in January 2023.

In order to test how to integrate drone traffic into our airspace, ENAIRE is currently working in European consortiums with the most innovative companies in the industry to demonstrate the viability of the UAM concept.

Of note are the CORUS-XUAM, AMU-LED and Uspace4UAM projects, which will conduct various exercises in Spain, namely in Castelldefells in Barcelona, Santiago de Compostela, and Villacarrillo in Jaén, respectively.

ENAIRE is the air navigation service provider in Spain. As a company of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, it provides en route control services for all flights and overflights from five control centres in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Gran Canaria and Palma, as well as approach services to every airport in the country.

In addition, 45 control towers receive ENAIRE’s communication, navigation and surveillance services, and 21 airports, including the country’s busiest, rely on its aerodrome control services.

ENAIRE is the fourth most important European air navigation service provider, and, in a clear commitment to the Single Sky initiative, belongs to international partnerships such as SESAR Joint Undertaking, SESAR Deployment Manager, A6 Alliance, iTEC, CANSO and ICAO.

ENAIRE is the official provider of aeronautical information in Spain.

-Enaire also photos

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