
On 21st of March, the representatives of EUSPA, the project consortium and the
two technical reviewers, met in Prague to discuss the preliminary design of the
Certiflight solution. The objective of the meeting was to agree on design
choices and better understand their implications, as those will be the basis for
the coming technical work of the project.

![Preliminary Review Meeting attendants](/img/posts/certiflight-preliminary-review-meeting-group.jpg)

The document D2.1 'User requirements and use case definition' triggered the
discussion among partners and reviewers. The project fundamentals and the use
cases presented in the document were debated in depth during the meeting
focusing on the reviewers' comments.

The ten use cases identified in the document were considered representative of
the added value of Certiflight in both business and safety needs of the users.
Among them we can mention last mile delivery, organic agriculture, port
surveillance, illegal fishing, airport runway inspection and traffic accident
investigation. The existence of so many use cases is the best sign of
Certiflight potential to further develop the concept of U-space as an exciting
new frontier for aviation.

The meeting has been also the occasion to provide an overview of ongoing
activities such as the development of communication materials, the selection of
suitable algorithms for spoofing detection and for automated separation. In
parallel, the partners have advanced the market analysis and preliminary
business model for Certiflight.

Following this successful meeting, Certiflight proceeds towards the next project
milestone: the Critical Design Review for whichsystem requirements, CONOPS and
platform specification have to be defined.

## Certiflight comes at the right time, according to EUSPA

The EUSPA Expert Monitor, Pere Molina, stressed that Certiflight project comes
at the "right time" because it "takes advantage of the current maturity of the
technology", but also adds innovation because it introduces "blockchain in the
authentication process".

<Testimonial
  picture='/img/posts/pere-molina.jpg'
  author='Pere Molina'
  position='EUSPA Expert Monitor'
>

It is outstanding how drone technology has evolved: some fifteen years ago, it
was all misbelieving; then total hype came afterwards, and we are now seeing how
the technology finally reaches its plateau, fueled by U-Space consolidation and
technology maturity. In this respect, Certiflight is timely as it proposes a
service within U-Space, based on available authentication mechanisms through
Galileo. It therefore leverages the current maturity of the technology, and adds
some more into it by introducing blockchain into the authentication process.

The project currently faces important milestones. The consultation of its
stakeholders is of paramount importance, and it will help shape the product and
trigger development activities. As an expert monitor for the EUSPA, I'm happy to
witness the progress of the project and help steer the activities to pursue its
final goal: the unleashing of the whole Galileo potential for advanced
applications.

</Testimonial>



## What is Certiflight

On Novemeber 23, 2022 took place the Kick-Off Meeting that marks the official
start of the Certifilght “Certified E-GNSS remote tracking of drone and aircraft
flights” project, a 30-month Innovation Action that aims to develop and test a
digital service for the generation of certified reports of flight tracks and the
flight logs of UAS and GA aircraft, especially for safety-critical and
commercially valuable applications.

The service will also be included in the USSP/UTM service provider’s software as
commercial Recording Service. In addition, the recorded tracks may be useful for
law enforcement, for instance sanctions for airspace infringement, as well as
for possible accident or incident investigations.

The core of the system is a Digital EGNSS/IoT Device installed on UAS and
General Aviation manned aircraft, equipped with an OSNMA Galileo/EGNOS enabled
receiver, capable to guarantee the authenticity of their position information at
the origin, without the possibility to be counterfeited or spoofed. Tracking
information is encrypted and once transmitted to the Certiflight platform is
permanently stored by automation software to an unalterable blockchain private
node.

<Testimonial
  picture='/img/posts/alberto-mennella.jpg'
  author='Alberto Mennella'
  position='Certiflight Project Coordinator'
>
    The CERTIFLIGHT project represents a very exciting challenge, as its aim is to ensure the “chain of trust” of information generated by drones and leisure aircrafts accessing the U-space airspace that it is expected to become very congested in the next years. 
With the advent of drones as mass-market and professional-market phenomenon, in the Open and Specific Categories, it is important to ensure that the related tracking data generated are trustful enough to be used both as payment mechanisms (for example, a trustful tracking system can be used as billing mechanism for Clients and UAS operators for charging drones’ missions based on the effective hours of flight) and trustful logging system. 
For this reason, CERTIFLIGHT aims at filling this gap through the implementation of a Certification platform for payload data and remote tracking generated by drones that can be used by UAS Operators, their Clients and Authorities as Auditing System.

The Positioning and time information of drones is ensured at the very origin,
through the Galileo OSNMA service which represents the “missing piece of the
puzzle” for this application. On the other side, the Blockchain technology
guarantees that each information stored in the platform cannot be altered or
being modified in the future.

Finally, our CERTIFLIGHT platform lays the foundation for a new class of
business services for UAS Operators but also to address the challenges of the
new paradigm of autonomous drones’ operations where the boundaries among drones
Constructors, Operators and Pilots (if any) might be source of future legal
disputes.

</Testimonial>

## Project information

The project is coordinated by TopView s.r.l., a technology oriented SME and
includes in its consortium companies and organisations with a proven track
record in the U-space sector such as D-Flight, UpVision, Unifly, Distretto
Tecnologico Aerospaziale, TA, The Sara Project, TuDelf, Way4WARD, Aria United,
EuroUSC España and EuroUSC Italia.

Certiflight was presented to the call HORIZON-EUSPA-2021-SPACE-02-53: EGNSS
applications for the Digital Age and became one of the projects selected by the
European Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA). The project starts in November
2022 and will have a duration of two and a half years (30 months) after signing
the Grant Agreement no 101082484.

<Picture src='/img/posts/euspa.svg' alt='EUSPA logo' width='320' />


Certiflight news

Certiflight reaches its first major milestone, the Preliminary Design Review, in the EUSPA headquarters

Certiflight Kick-off meeting