SPADE Open Call #2
SPADE Open Call #2
Τhe strategic objective of SPADE is to develop an Intelligent Ecosystem to address the multiple purposes concept in the light of deploying UAVs to promote sustainable digital services for the benefit of a large scope of various end users in the sectors of agriculture, forestry, and livestock. This includes individual UAV usability, UAV type applicability (e.g. swarm, collaborative, autonomous, tethered), UAV governance models availability and trustworthiness. Multi-purposes will be further determined in the sensing dataspace reusability based on trained AI/Machine Learning (ML) models. First, SPADE will create a digital platform that is able to realise the potential benefits to be reaped from the use of drones. This platform is making drone operations better accessible and controllable, as well as providing a service channel for value added services enabled by drones. Second, SPADE is demonstrating three innovative use cases of drones making use of the digital platform. While demonstrating the use cases, the benefits coming from the use of drones are analysed and quantified, on a detailed stakeholder level basis. This will demonstrate the new business opportunities. The demonstrations/pilots will also serve as an analysis platform to investigate the regulatory framework at international and national level. Open calls will provide 12 further use cases.
Entité de financement
Commission Européenne - Horizon EuropeClôture de l'appel
26 mai 2025Zone géographique
eur
Objectif
SPADE is looking for innovative solutions to identify and finance nine of the most promising and ambitious Case Studies that will augment the capabilities of drone technology.
To be eligible for funding through the SPADE Open Call, applicants must align their solutions with one of three distinct SPADE Case Study groups:
1. Open-Field Case Study Integration (Spain): The open-field case study in Spain primarily focuses on
distinct use cases in Mediterranean crops.
2. Forestry Case Study integration (Norway): In Southern Norway SPADE will implement three forestry-
based use cases: (1) a drone swarm for forest inventory, (2) collaborative case for forest inventory and
planting activities, and (3) a heavy-lift drone for implementing forest operations.
3. Live-stock Case Study integration (Greece): The primary objective is to enhance and promote sheep
breeding through grazing and health monitoring on the Greek island of Lesvos. It will utilize multi-purpose
UAVs in various configurations, synchronized with SPADE platform digital twin services.
Critères d'éligibilité
Only applicants legally established/resident in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe associated country will be eligible for funding.
No consortium allowed.
The eligible entities by SPADE open call should be legally identified under the following categories of organisations:
• Universities and research centers: academic and research institutions.
• NGOs and foundations: non-profit organizations and foundations with experience in drone applications development.
• SMEs and startups: small and medium-sized enterprises and startups that focus on developing innovative solutions related to SPADE case studies.
For some challenges, full codebase must be made open-source and be thoroughly documented.
Technologies clés
UCU-CH1: Swarm Communication and Navigation
UCU-CH2: Open-Source Tilted Rotor Drone System
UCU-CH3: Aerial Image Processing Service
CS1-CH1: ML for based Disease Detection in Mediterranean Crops
CS1-CH2: Open Field Data Collection and Annotation
CS2-CH1: Below-Canopy Forest Data Collection and Annotation
CS2-CH2: Ultralight Self-levelling Landing Gear for Quadrotor Drones
CS3-CH1: Virtual Fencing Application for Livestock Grazing Management
CS3-CH2: Acquiring and Structuring Livestock Open-field Animal Wellbeing/Healthcare Datasets for Training ML Models
Typologie de consortium
SPADE invites applicants who can provide innovative solutions to address the specific challenges presented by each of our three distinct Case Studies.
Furthermore, in addition to the specific challenges of each Case Study, there are three overarching challenges that apply universally across all of SPADE's Case Studies initiatives. These general challenges have the potential to shape the landscape of drone technology.
SPADE seeks to select and finance one project for each challenge.
Each selected project will have a duration of 6 months. The maximum budget that each project can receive is 60,000 EUR. The selection process will favor proposals demonstrating a higher level of maturity, especially those with the potential to achieve elevated TRLs to effectively address SPADE's challenges.