Successful symposium "Drones in Civil Protection" at TH Ingolstadt

For the third time, the Safety Research Department of the Bavarian Red Cross Rescue Service in cooperation with the UAM Initiative of the City of Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI) held the specialist conference "Drones in Civil Protection". After last year's Drone Day had to be held online due to corona, this year it was possible to meet again in presence.

Inside the Technical University of Ingolstadt, visitors were able to listen to interesting presentations and a panel discussion on the topic of "Drones - a new link in the rescue chain". After welcoming speeches by the state director Leonhard Stärk, the member of the state parliament Alfred Grob representing the city of Ingolstadt and Prof. Dr. Suchandt, the vice president of the university, lectures were given on various applications in projects and real operations and also legal framework conditions, such as the development of the concept of "U-Space", were explained. In the panel discussion chaired by Prof. Mario Döller of FH Kufstein, Dr. Judex representing the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, Prof. Dr. Biberthaler representing research and practice, and Pierre Ulfig representing industry discussed new aspects of integrating drones into the rescue chain.

The technical exhibition also offered different ideas and possibilities. Students from the Technical University of Munich showed their newly developed defibrillator drone, which is being tested as part of the Horyzn project. Representatives of the Dronemasters Academy provided a practical reference to drones. In a specially set up parkour, visitors could test small drones and get a feel for the flight behaviour of drones. The company rhotheta explained new possibilities for searching for missing persons by combining drones with radio direction finding technology. The CURSOR, AIFER and LARUS-Pro projects were presented, as well as the possibilities of using small drones from the AIRNAIL company to carry out rapid situation assessments.

In the outdoor area, drones and research projects of various authorities and organisations with security tasks were shown. In connection with the FreeRail project, the company Quantum Systems presented the Trinity drone and a specially developed gripper arm that can catch the drone in hovering flight. On the end-user side, BRK Sicherheitsforschung, Bergwacht Bayern, the fire brigade from Karlsbad in the Czech Republic, BRK Wasserwacht and the German Rescue Robotics Centre exhibited drone exhibits and vehicles. With over 100 visitors, the Drone Day was once again a complete success.