Drone Lab

The remotely piloted aircraft (drones or RPAs) sector has been the subject of great growth in recent years. New opportunities are opening up in terms of technological development and new business opportunities. At the same time, the need has arisen to establish a legal framework that allows controlled development under safe conditions and a new regulation has been approved that generates new operational scenarios and establishes the conditions and training requirements to be met by organizations operating with these aircrafts.

The Drone Lab is constituted as a section within Andorra Research + Innovation to promote the development of this technology in Andorra. It provides support, both logistically and operationally, to projects that make use of drones.

Drone Lab itself, together with institutions in the country -such as the Fire Brigade- develops specific projects aimed at integrating RPAs operations in areas of scientific and social interest, such as exploring the potential of the technology in mountain rescue missions, monitoring the evolution of the snowpack [1] or photogrammetric surveys.

Drone Lab has a small fleet of drones (both commercial and experimental) and qualified pilots. It has experience in the elaboration of risk assessment and mitigation reports and in obtaining flight authorizations.

Drone Lab goals

• Promote the use of protocols and best practices for the development of safe and responsible RPA operations.
• To offer a training and experimentation environment for students, researchers and developers of RPA operations.
• To investigate the potential of drone implementation in scientific research and innovative operations.
• Provide logistical and/or operational support in RPA operations in Andorra.

[1] M. Pons et al., “Remote sensing techniques for helping decision-making in the management of ski areas,” in International Snow Science Workshop 2018, 2018, pp. 548–552.