Revolutionizing the Port of Rotterdam: Avy's journey to greater autonomy

Achieving Greater Autonomy

While the EVLOS demo focused primarily on the flight missions and generating imagery, the BVLOS proof of concept started in September 2022, focussed on autonomy to a greater degree. There were two important components to achieving this:

1. The release of the Aera 3 and improvements made on the Docking Station. They enable us to fly more effectively in a wider range of weather conditions, resulting in more complex and extensive operations.
2. The regulatory approval we obtained for limited BVLOS flights (meaning we use an airspace observer to scan the sky for traffic deconfliction). Applying for BVLOS operations in the Port of Rotterdam required close collaboration between Avy, the Dutch Civil Aviation Authority (ILT), the Port of Rotterdam, other stakeholders and SAR operators. Important factors to be considered throughout this process included: safety mitigations in such a dangerous area, data protection, and integrating with existing systems. However, the biggest challenge that arose was the regulatory framework. To be exact, at the time of the application, there was no published Predefined Risk Assessment (PDRA) in place for BVLOS in an uncontrolled airspace with an airspace observer. This meant that Avy had to work very closely with the Dutch authorities on developing the basis for limited BVLOS and submitting the SORA before EASA published the PDRA.

From September 2022 onwards, almost 1000 km of BVLOS flights, across 3 different routes that cover the majority of the Western Port, were completed. During these flights we are focused on improving the existing use cases (infrastructure-, environmental-, and harbor master- inspections and monitoring) by gathering feedback from the Port of Rotterdam camera team and Operational Managers as well as other stakeholders.