Technology to Provide ‘Live Feed’ of Activities Across Antwerp Port Area
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The Port of Antwerp-Bruges in Belgium has launched a new drone network designed to provide a “live feed” of activities and operations across its Antwerp port facilities.
The “D-Hive drone-in-a-box” network will give authorities an “extra pair of eyes” to manage, inspect and supervise the entire port, which covers an area of more than 120 square kilometres.
Six autonomous drones remotely controlled from a command-and-control centre in the heart of the port will be deployed on 18 daily beyond visual line of sight, or BVLOS sorties to carry out a range of activities, including berth management, monitoring, infrastructure inspections, oil spill and floating waste detection. The network will also support security partners during incidents, the port authority said.
The network, in the making since 2019, is the world’s first implementation of BVLOS flights on this scale in a complex industrial environment, it said.
“Given the huge surface area of the port, drones provide us with leverage when it comes to carrying out our core tasks as a port authority,” said Jacques Vandermeiren, CEO of Port of Antwerp-Bruges.
“This drone network will play a crucial role in the further roll-out of the port's digital twin, a digital copy based on thousands of pieces of data from a network of cameras, sensors and drones, giving a real-time picture of what is happening at the port every second. This first takes us an important step further in developing a fully digital nervous system that will help us manage our port more efficiently and make traffic even safer and smoother.”
The network, the result of a partnership between the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, DroneMatrix, SkeyDrone and Proximus, was given the green light by the Belgian Civil Aviation Authority, or BCAA, and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, or EASA.
Check out a video on the D-Hive network:
The Port of Antwerp-Bruges is an exhibitor and sponsor at Breakbulk Europe 2023, taking place on 6-8 June at Rotterdam Ahoy. To reserve your tickets to the world’s largest gathering of breakbulk and project cargo professionals, click on this link.
