DRIVER+

Project description

With the participation of DLR, the EU project DRIVER+ brings together a variety of technologies for crisis management in the wake of a disaster and applies them in four Europe-wide (Poland, France, The Netherlands, Austria) joint demonstrations. Real-time aerial imaging makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the situation on the ground in a disaster area and therefore to the targeted planning of response personnel deployment. The use of RPAS is becoming increasingly significant in particular in civil disaster control and crisis management. This is due on the one hand to the fact that they can be deployed even in areas which are hazardous or very difficult to access and, on the other, to the opportunity which they provide for observing at-risk or affected areas over a long period of time.

It is on this point that DLR's work is focused. For DRIVER+, the research aircraft D-CODE will be equipped with camera systems provided by DLR's Earth Observation Centre (EOC) in Oberpfaffenhofen. Using the 3K camera system employed here an area of 80 square kilometres can be imaged, geo-referenced aerial images can be produced and the results transmitted to the ground station via a data link – all in approx. two minutes, depending on flight altitude. In order to test unmanned flights in controlled airspace and for the demonstration of RPAS flights for disaster control, the research aircraft D-CODE, a Dornier 228, was modified in such a way that flight instructions from the ground can be received and processed. Real-time aerial images are sent to the ground station for evaluation during the flight in order not only to establish the area affected but equally to spot people in the crisis area. The aircraft's flight and mission planning takes place from the U-FLY ground station for unmanned aircraft at the Institute of Flight Guidance in Braunschweig.

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