Terra Drone Corporation has announced that its subsidiary Unifly successfully completed the three-year BURDI (Belgium-Netherlands U-space Reference Design Implementation) Project, a landmark European initiative aimed at safely integrating drones and manned aircraft into shared airspace. The project’s results were presented at an international conference in Brussels, Belgium, on October 23-24, 2025, showcasing significant progress toward large-scale U-space deployment across Europe.
Launched in November 2022, the BURDI project brought together 18 partners and four affiliated entities from aviation, drone technology, infrastructure, and regulatory sectors to design, test, and validate a scalable U-space ecosystem over Belgian airspace, particularly in Antwerp, Brussels, and Liège, with cross-border coordination extending to the Netherlands. Led by skeyes, Belgium’s national air navigation service provider, the consortium included Unifly as the core UTM technology provider, SkeyDrone as the designated U-space Service Provider, and multiple drone operators and infrastructure stakeholders.
Major Achievements
The BURDI project delivered several groundbreaking milestones that demonstrate the operational readiness of U-space technology:
Cross-Border Innovation: The project developed the first cross-border U-space reference design between Belgium and the Netherlands, establishing a pioneering model for European interoperability.
Medical Drone Delivery: One of the project’s most impactful demonstrations involved Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) medical drone deliveries between hospital campuses in Belgium’s Kempen region. Operating from August 2025, these flights reduced ground transport times from approximately 30 minutes to under 13 minutes, transporting time-sensitive medical cargo including pathology samples and medications between AZ Turnhout hospital sites. In a regulatory breakthrough, drones were remotely piloted from Skyports Drone Services’ operations center in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom—one of the first cross-border remote piloting approvals in Europe.
Port Operations: The project executed demonstration flights for BVLOS operations in the Port of Antwerp/Antwerp Harbour geozone, integrating drone operations into complex real-world environments with manned aviation, ships, and critical infrastructure.
Regulatory Framework Development: BURDI partners developed a comprehensive U-space Concept of Operations (ConOps) aligned with SESAR and CINEA requirements, conducted airspace risk assessments, and established multilevel governance frameworks and stakeholder coordination mechanisms.
Weather and Operational Services: The project contributed to weather information services for U-space and advanced regulatory feedback for future U-space service design improvements.
Community Engagement: BURDI conducted surveys to assess U-space cost modeling and market uptake, working to advance social acceptance of drone operations among stakeholders and the public.
Technology and Implementation
Unifly’s UTM platform served as the technological backbone of the BURDI project, providing essential U-space services through Belgium’s certified Common Information Service Provider (CISP), skeyes, and U-space Service Provider (USSP), SkeyDrone. The platform enabled digital flight planning, automated authorizations, real-time airspace and traffic monitoring, tactical deconfliction, conformance monitoring, and integration with cross-border regulatory authorities.
Jürgen Verstaen, Director of Innovation and Co-Founder at Unifly, noted that “BURDI has delivered not only technical proof points, but also valuable insights on governance, stakeholder alignment, social acceptance, and regulatory gaps”.
Funding and European Context
The BURDI project received funding from the European Union under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and was supported by the SESAR Joint Undertaking, part of the European Commission’s Digital Sky Demonstrator program. With a total budget of approximately €9.9 million, BURDI was one of three major U-space Digital Sky Demonstrator projects, alongside U-ELCOME (Spain, Italy, France) and ÉALÚ-AER (Ireland), all aimed at accelerating U-space implementation across Europe.
Future Outlook
With the project formally concluding at the end of 2025, 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 ConOps, reference scenarios, risk assessment frameworks, and coordination mechanisms developed under BURDI will be published and made available to support future U-space deployments across Europe.
Participating partners and national authorities plan to continue evolving U-space implementation, scaling lessons learned toward operational adoption, with data and feedback informing upcoming regulatory updates and standardization processes in the U-space/UTM domain.
More information is available from Unifly’s website.
Ian McNabb is a journalist focusing on drone technology and lifestyle content at Dronelife. He is based between Boston and NH and, when not writing, enjoys hiking and Boston area sports.
