Sustainable and autonomous carbon-neutral aerial ecosystems and energy solutions for future metropolises

AeroPolis

Automated vehicles create new zero-carbon services for urban design. AeroPolis proposes a new take on the aerial logistics ecosystem by defining how autonomous urban-embedded micro-airports and open logistics-ready drones can redefine and advance the current technological possibilities.

Funders

Biomimetics and Intelligent Systems Group (BISG) researchers

Project information

Project duration

-

Funded by

Research Council of Finland

Project coordinator

University of Oulu

Contact information

Project leader

Project description

Solving the challenges of future transportation requires a solid understanding of the megatrends in urbanization, digitalization and energy. Automated vehicles in particular create new zero-carbon services when combined with renewable energy and urban design and attractive opportunities are found in the development of autonomous aerial vehicles, addressing greener last-mile delivery services. Several challenges in this sector are also shared throughout other fields, ideally making the related automation and energy solutions universal. AeroPolis proposes a new take on the aerial logistics ecosystem by defining how autonomous urban-embedded micro-airports and open logistics-ready drones can redefine and advance the current technological possibilities. This is then combined with a digital platform that leverages distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), advanced aerial autonomy and ground-to-air coordination approaches, and integrated hybrid renewable solar+fuel cell energy solutions.

Project partners are:

  • University of Oulu
  • University of Turku
  • Tampere University
  • Aalto University

Project results

Edelman, H.; Stenroos, J.; Peña Queralta, J.; Hästbacka, D.; Oksanen, J.; Westerlund, T. and Röning, J. (2023) Analysis of airport design for introducing infrastructure for autonomous drones. Facilities, Vol. 41 No. 15/16, pp. 85-100. DOI: 10.1108/F-11-2022-0146.

Kunz Cechinel, A.; Röning, J.; Tikanmäki, A.; DePieri, E. and Della Méa Plentz, P. (2023) Hanging Drone: An approach to UAV landing for monitoring. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 1: ICINCO; ISBN 978-989-758-670-5; ISSN 2184-2809, SciTePress, pages 363-373. DOI: 10.5220/0012154900003543.

Vilkki, A. (2023) Functionalities in micro-airports. Master’s thesis. University of Oulu, Degree Programme of Mechanical Engineering.