The ATLAS experimental flight center in Villacarrillo has been the beneficiary of the call for grants 2021 for Technological Centers of the Province of Jaen on actions aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of economic sectors, with a grant of 30,000€ for the development of the project.
The main objective of this project is to provide the ATLAS Experimental Flight Center with the infrastructure, procedures and all the necessary means to offer manufacturers a laboratory in a unique environment in which they can have the necessary tools and personnel to certify their open category drones. as well as to develop and verify the operation of those new technologies that will be required to comply with the new European regulation for unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Providing the center with these capabilities will attract as customers those manufacturers who need to sell their products in Europe beyond 2023. In this case, ATLAS is expected to become the first European center with all means, experienced staff and knowledge required for conducting the flight tests that will be necessary to obtain the CE marking. Being able to reach this milestone will give more visibility and increase the brand of both the Jaen province and ATLAS, consolidating its position at the forefront of the aerospace sector, and thus attracting a greater number of companies who would be interested in being close to the environment in which their products are validated and tested.
The activity to be carried out by the center will focus mainly on the following tasks:
- Study of the European regulation of drones for the open category and associated standards
- Design of test procedures based on standards for future accreditation of open category aircraft
- Adaptation of the ATLAS Center as a testing and validation scenario
- Concept tests with real drone and development of test reports
- Generation of final deliverable documentation