Network Rail, Dronecloud and RUAS, the drone arm of Railscape are working together on a project to create a Centrally Managed Drone Hub based at Network Rail’s Rail Operating Centre (ROC) inBirmingham. A key step to showcasing the journey to scalable drone operations for Critical Nationalinfrastructure. Dronecloud aims to develop this groundbreaking capability into a fully managed servicefor use across all Critical National Infrastructure.
Drones save lives and money
“The Holy Grail is Beyond Visual Line of Sight or BVLOS”
Incident management costs UK infrastructure owners over £300m per year with railway crime costingNetwork Rail alone £1bn over the last decade. Delays from trespass are becoming one of the most significant causes of disruption on the railway –with over 1.5 million minutes since April 2024.
Routine asset maintenance tasks for Critical National Infrastructure are cumbersome and resourceintensive, often putting lives at risk.
Using drones will revolutionise the day-to-day running of infrastructure but current regulation meansdrone flights must stay within visual line of sight of the pilot.
The Holy Grail that unlocks scale is Beyond Visual Line of Sight drone flights or BVLOS for short.Scaling drones for Critical National Infrastructure
In a landmark development for the UK drone and rail industries, Dronecloud has collaborated withdrone operator RUAS alongside drone manufacturers Velos Motors & Evolve dynamics to deliver oneof the most advanced BVLOS deployments in the UK.
Working with Network Rail, the team is perusing a multi-step regulatory approval process and hascreated the UK’s first centrally managed Drone Operations Hub, designed to support 24/7 remoteincident response and routine asset management anywhere within the Birmingham region.
Trials being carried out at the new Hub are already proving this potential by recently helping NetworkRail and the British Transport Police avoid closing Birmingham New Street station, resulting in a costsaving of several hundred thousand pounds.
This is just the start
In line with the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) BVLOS delivery model and roadmap (CAP- 3038), the 1st step in the journey delivers approval to operate the centralised drone HUB with Visual Mitigation up to 8km of range. That approval proves the Hub concept is viable and showcases Dronecloud’s integrated Flight & Safety Management System (FMS/SMS) and Uncrewed Traffic Management (UTM) platform as the centrepiece driving drone solutions for Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
The next phase scheduled for spring 2025, sees Dronecloud, Network Rail & RUAS working closely with the CAA’s new Atypical Air Environment (AAE) Test & Evaluation programme team to establish the Hub operation as one of the first in the UK to secure an AAE Operational Authorisation which will allow for the incremental increase in distance, initially up to 10km under pure BVLOS conditions, with subsequent phases planned to extend range up to 30km and beyond..
Jan Domaradzki CEO of Dronecloud said:
“Dronecloud’s vision is to deploy a managed service with multiple Hubs and satellite drones ports to deliver a common capability for all asset managers and drone operators needing to fly BVLOS across the UK. This will be a truly game-changing capability, opening the door for centralised mass-scale deployment of drones across all CNI (Critical National Infrastructure). As the industry matures, CNI use cases will help drive the design and development of UTM services. It’s critical for us to be at the forefront as we move into the implementation stage.”
Tim Harris Director of Railscape’s drone arm RUAS said:
“The success of this BVLOS project hinges on strong collaboration, and as an operator, I’m proud to be part of this team effort with Network Rail, Dronecloud, and others. By working together and sharing expertise, we’re developing best practices and setting the standard for future BVLOS operations within the rail industry and beyond. This initiative is a game-changer, allowing us to move beyond the limitations of visual line of sight and offer significantly more efficient and extensive monitoring and response capabilities. Ultimately, this technology will enable Network Rail to deliver safer, more reliable rail services for the public.”
If you’re interested in partnering with Dronecloud, RUAS or the wider project team to continue the scale-out of Drones in Critical National Infrastructure, please get in touch.
About Dronecloud:
Dronecloud is one of the UK’s leading providers of Drone Operations and UTM software, designed to underpin Managed Services for CNI (Critical National Infrastructure). Dronecloud’s focus on CNI customers across Road (National Highways UK), Rail (Network Rail UK), Maritime (Associated British Ports UK) & Power Distribution (Northern Power Grid UK) is already supporting some of the largest and most active drone operations in the Europe. Over The last three years Dronecloud have participated in and led several large UK Govt. backed projects to advance the drone aviation industry.
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