Terra Drone Company has introduced that its subsidiary Unifly efficiently accomplished the three-year BURDI (Belgium-Netherlands U-space Reference Design Implementation) Undertaking, a landmark European initiative aimed toward safely integrating drones and manned plane into shared airspace. The challenge’s outcomes had been offered at a global convention in Brussels, Belgium, on October 23-24, 2025, showcasing vital progress towards large-scale U-space deployment throughout Europe.
Launched in November 2022, the BURDI challenge introduced collectively 18 companions and 4 affiliated entities from aviation, drone expertise, infrastructure, and regulatory sectors to design, take a look at, and validate a scalable U-space ecosystem over Belgian airspace, significantly in Antwerp, Brussels, and Liège, with cross-border coordination extending to the Netherlands. Led by skeyes, Belgium’s nationwide air navigation service supplier, the consortium included Unifly because the core UTM expertise supplier, SkeyDrone because the designated U-space Service Supplier, and a number of drone operators and infrastructure stakeholders.
Main Achievements
The BURDI challenge delivered a number of groundbreaking milestones that show the operational readiness of U-space expertise:
Cross-Border Innovation: The challenge developed the primary cross-border U-space reference design between Belgium and the Netherlands, establishing a pioneering mannequin for European interoperability.
Medical Drone Supply: One of many challenge’s most impactful demonstrations concerned Past Visible Line of Sight (BVLOS) medical drone deliveries between hospital campuses in Belgium’s Kempen area. Working from August 2025, these flights decreased floor transport occasions from roughly half-hour to beneath 13 minutes, transporting time-sensitive medical cargo together with pathology samples and drugs between AZ Turnhout hospital websites. In a regulatory breakthrough, drones had been remotely piloted from Skyports Drone Companies’ operations middle in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom—one of many first cross-border distant piloting approvals in Europe.
Port Operations: The challenge executed demonstration flights for BVLOS operations within the Port of Antwerp/Antwerp Harbour geozone, integrating drone operations into advanced real-world environments with manned aviation, ships, and demanding infrastructure.
Regulatory Framework Improvement: BURDI companions developed a complete U-space Idea of Operations (ConOps) aligned with SESAR and CINEA necessities, carried out airspace threat assessments, and established multilevel governance frameworks and stakeholder coordination mechanisms.
Climate and Operational Companies: The challenge contributed to climate info providers for U-space and superior regulatory suggestions for future U-space service design enhancements.
Group Engagement: BURDI carried out surveys to evaluate U-space price modeling and market uptake, working to advance social acceptance of drone operations amongst stakeholders and the general public.
Expertise and Implementation
Unifly’s UTM platform served because the technological spine of the BURDI challenge, offering important U-space providers by way of Belgium’s licensed Widespread Info Service Supplier (CISP), skeyes, and U-space Service Supplier (USSP), SkeyDrone. The platform enabled digital flight planning, automated authorizations, real-time airspace and site visitors monitoring, tactical deconfliction, conformance monitoring, and integration with cross-border regulatory authorities.
Jürgen Verstaen, Director of Innovation and Co-Founder at Unifly, famous that “BURDI has delivered not solely technical proof factors, but additionally precious insights on governance, stakeholder alignment, social acceptance, and regulatory gaps”.
Funding and European Context
The BURDI challenge obtained funding from the European Union beneath the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and was supported by the SESAR Joint Endeavor, a part of the European Fee’s Digital Sky Demonstrator program. With a complete funds of roughly €9.9 million, BURDI was one among three main U-space Digital Sky Demonstrator tasks, alongside U-ELCOME (Spain, Italy, France) and ÉALÚ-AER (Eire), all aimed toward accelerating U-space implementation throughout Europe.
Future Outlook
With the challenge formally concluding on the finish of 2025, the BURDI consortium will hand over its findings, validated methodologies, operational classes, and suggestions to European regulators, nationwide aviation authorities, and the broader U-space group. The ConOps, reference situations, threat evaluation frameworks, and coordination mechanisms developed beneath BURDI shall be printed and made out there to help future U-space deployments throughout Europe.
Collaborating companions and nationwide authorities plan to proceed evolving U-space implementation, scaling classes discovered towards operational adoption, with knowledge and suggestions informing upcoming regulatory updates and standardization processes within the U-space/UTM area.
Extra info is out there from Unifly’s web site.
Ian McNabb is a journalist specializing in drone expertise and way of life content material at Dronelife. He’s based mostly between Boston and NH and, when not writing, enjoys climbing and Boston space sports activities.
