Ineco has carried out the first drone operation that has taken place at the Barcelona-El Prat Josep Tarradellas airport. This activity has shown how the drone radio aids calibration system works, an innovation project developed by Ineco that enables results comparable to those of a conventional flight calibration aircraft, at a lower cost and with greater flexibility.

For this, our team has carried out verification tasks, analysing the signals from the ILS02 and the VOR BCN, during the normal operation of the airport on runways 06L-24R and 06R-24L,

keeping the Ineco aircraft in a limited area of runway 02-20 to guarantee the safety of operations.

Radio aids (VOR, ILS, DME) are ground equipment that communicate with aircraft in flight through radio signals, making it possible for air navigation to be safe, providing the necessary positioning and guidance signals to keep aircraft conveniently separated. terrain and obstacles. In order to guarantee that the operation of the equipment is optimal, parameters related to the quality of the signal they emit must be periodically calibrated, such as power, modulations, response delays, etc., for which aircraft with pilots and personnel are currently used and specialized technician.

This operation has been possible thanks to the invaluable help of Aena staff from the airport's Operational Security Department, as well as ENAIRE Operations, in particular the Control Tower staff. Likewise, all the procedures were facilitated and different ENAIRE managers from ENAIRE's Eastern Region Directorate were present during the operation.