The BURDI (Belgium-Netherlands U-space Reference Design Implementation) project, a flagship European demonstration under the Connecting Europe Facility and supported by SESAR Joint Undertaking is presenting its results after three years of intensive development and real-world testing. BURDI’s outcomes and lessons learned are being featured at the SESAR Digital Sky Demonstration Showcase conference, where European innovators highlight the next generation of U-space and ATM integration achievements.
Launched in November 2022, the BURDI project set out to design, test, validate and demonstrate a scalable, interoperable, safe, and socially acceptable U-space ecosystem over Belgian airspace (notably over Antwerp, Brussels, and Liège) with a cross-border orientation towards the Netherlands. The initiative brought together 18 partners and four affiliated entities from across the aviation, drone technology, infrastructure, and regulatory sectors.
Over the life of the project, BURDI achieved significant milestones. Amongst other things, the project partners:
- Developed the first cross-border U-space reference design between Belgium and the Netherlands – a pioneering step for European interoperability
- Developed a U-space Concept of Operations (ConOps) aligned with SESAR and CINEA requirements
- Conducted airspace risk assessments, stakeholder coordination mechanisms, and multilevel governance frameworks
- Executed demonstration flights, especially BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) drone operations in the Port of Antwerp / Antwerp Harbour geozone, integrating drone operations into complex and real-world environments
- Enabled a medical logistics trial: BVLOS drone flights between hospital sites in the Kempen region, reducing ground transport times from ~30 minutes to under 13 minutes
- Contributed to weather information services for U-space, advancing regulatory feedback and future improvements to U-space service design
- Engaged the drone community and ecosystem stakeholders, including surveys to assess U-space cost modelling and market uptake, to advance social acceptance.
“BURDI has delivered not only technical proof points, but also valuable insights on governance, stakeholder alignment, social acceptance, and regulatory gaps.” Jürgen Verstaen, Director of Innovation and Co-Founder of Unifly
With the project’s work coming to an end at the end of the year, the BURDI consortium will hand over its findings, validated methodologies, operational lessons and recommendations to European regulators, national aviation authorities, and the wider U-space community. The ambition is that BURDI’s results will act as a reference design for future U-space deployments across Europe.
Although the formal project is ending, the legacy of BURDI continues:
- The ConOps, reference scenarios, risk assessment frameworks and coordination mechanisms developed under BURDI will be published and made available to the broader community.
- Participating partners and national authorities will continue to evolve U-space implementation, scaling lessons learned toward operational adoption.
- The data, use-case results, and feedback will inform upcoming regulatory updates and standardisation processes in the U-space/UTM domain.
