Gabriel Rene of VERSES
VERSES AI Inc. has announced completion of Flying Forward 2020 (FF2020). The three-year project that began in November 2020 was funded by European Union to test viability of autonomous drones across five European cities. The final two trial cities, Oulu, Finland and Tartu, Estonia, join the three other sites Eindhoven, Netherlands, Milan, Italy, and Zaragoza, Spain in demonstrating essential digital infrastructure for governing autonomous drones.
VERSES platform, KOSM, was deployed in Oulu to map navigation routes and landing zones in urban areas based on 5G/6G signal strength as well as inspect locations such as winter roads and parking spaces while in Tartu, KOSM was implemented for preventative maintenance by automatically monitoring solar panels.
“Today’s conclusion went extremely well,” says Guido Maria Magliano, VERSES AI (artificial intelligence), director of operations. “In order to unlock the tremendous latent value of autonomous systems, public and private stakeholders need a radically new approach to interoperability, governance and coordination and we believe VERSES platform, running on open standards deployed alongside our partners, proves that the EU’s vision for a smarter world with safer AI powered vehicles has been demonstrated through a wide variety of use cases is now possible, necessary and at hand.“
The FF2020 consortium includes 12 global partners, working in concert to define a governance model, a regulatory framework, a geospatial digital infrastructure, a digital toolbox, an identity of things (IDoT) scheme and interoperability frameworks for autonomous drones. These deliverables were identified in scope of the programme as foundational to enabling a vast array of unmanned drone use cases including emergency response, surveillance, last mile delivery and taxi drones which collectively represent significant commercial value in safety. Straits Research estimates that the commercial drone market is expected to reach USD $1.2 trillion by 2030.
“We’re thrilled with our results of the programme and their validation of how VERSES technology has paved the way for legally compliant commercialisation not just for autonomous drones but for autonomous vehicles, sensors and AI powered systems of all kinds,” says Gabriel Rene, founder and CEO of VERSES.
Learn more about how VERSES is providing guidance for governments on the importance of governance of Artificial Intelligence by reading “The Future of Global AI Governance,” a recent collaboration between VERSES and DENTONS.
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