Stockholm got its landing sites for drones mapped

Drones and other urban mobility are getting more attention, and the industry is growing fast. CITYAM project concentrates on these developments. One task in the project is to find landing spots from the partnering cities. In Stockholm, a bachelor’s degree student Adam Mitry collected information about already existing sites. He is studying air transportation and logistics in Linköping University.

We interviewed Mitry to know more about the work!

What is your topic?

I helped Stockholm City to map what kinds of landing site solutions exist for drones based on two use cases; data collection and medical delivery.

How did you come up with the topic? 

I got the idea for the topic mostly due to one of my professors, senior associate professor Valentin Polishchuk, who advised me to go into this field of research. During my highschool years I did write a report about electric airplanes and was at that time interested in drones.

How did you find the sights?

Well, mostly through research on the internet, articles and blogs. New companies popped up more or less every day which meant I had to put a time limit.

What kind of places are good for landing?

It depends. For use cases that demand sending and retrieving packages, it is necessary to place the landing site at an easy accessible location. For other use cases, i.e traffic monitoring, when the access to the landing site is not as important, rooftops seems to be quite useful.

What kind of spots did you find?

I categorized the landing sites into six categories where three and four were the most promising based on the use cases I focused on. 

Category three is usually known as a “drone in a box” solution, where the drone is secured and getting charged in-between flights. Category four is quite similar but has a built in loading system, meaning it is easy to exchange packages at the landing site via the drone.

What was the most interesting finding you made?

What struck me the most was the amount of terms, definitions and vocabulary that are used at the moment in the field of landing site solutions for drones. One of my conclusions is that we need to discuss, define and name each and every landing site solution for drones in order to reduce the confusion and accelerate the development in this area.

Another thing that struck me during my research was how important drones are and probably will be for many people in the future, if they are used in a correct way.

The thesis will be published by Linköping University!

Check Adam Mitry’s Excel about European landing sites and landing site providers!

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