Canard Drones and AENA (The Spanish Airport Operator) have signed a collaboration agreement, to evaluate and validate the results of research and development in the field of maintenance of airport pavements and infrastructure. It includes inspection and calibration of air navigation aid systems, as well as of the generation and optimization of solutions in this area carried out by Canard. The agreement, for an initial period of two years, allows the use of AENA facilities by Canard, and in turn, the public entity may integrate the data obtained in its platforms or information systems.
The final objective of this collaboration is to facilitate the inspections of the runways and the airport environment. The terrain visualization process would be carried out by a set of sensors prepared and calibrated for the environmental conditions that are considered appropriate and allow data collection while airports are closed for aircraft operations, or working in non-operational areas.
Likewise, AENA will enable the measurement of the main radio navigation aids systems, such as ILS and VOR, in the airports of the Spanish network to verify the correspondence with the current measurement systems, improving maintenance efficiency, with the objective of minimize the time of flight inspections, as well as the periodicity of these.
The PCI (Pavement Condition Index) technologies developed by Canard entail a reduction in the time required for field inspection, and a decrease in subjectivity in the categorization of track deteriorations, with the use of automatic processes such as data collection through artificial vision and subsequent analysis using Artificial Intelligence.
Canard and AENA have been collaborating for several years in the development of inspection and calibration systems for visual navigation aids, and there are several Spanish airports where calibrations have been made with the new Canard technologies. Last September, Canard was present at the ICAO Innovation Fair in Montreal, inside AENA’s stand, along with two other Spanish technology companies.
AENA has been supporting Canard’s visual inspection development process from the beginning. This smart suite is now marketed worldwide. For its part, the Spanish Air Force has also been supporting Canard in the implementation and calibration of radio-aids, a solution that is also being marketed.
Canard is certified by AESA (The Spanish Safety Agency) to carry out specialized activities in controlled airspaces, including the different air traffic service providers in Spain, one of the countries with the most restrictive legislation in this regard.
