The African Drone Forum (ADF) Symposium and Expo showcases recent advances in autonomous aviation, associated business models and technologies that can make a significant difference for communities across Africa.

Date: February 5-7, 2020

Location: Kigali Convention Centre

The event runs concurrently with the African Drone Forum Symposium and the Africa Tech Summit.

Lake Kivu Challenge is grateful to Altitude Angel for providing their expertise as the Umbrella UTM for the Lake Kivu Challenge Flying Competitions. Their UTM platform, GuardianUTM, will be functioning in conjunction with hardware tracking systems provided by Involi, uAvionix and Unifly.

We thank all participants for submitting Expressions of Interest for the Unmanned Traffic Management Service Providers (UTM SP) showcase opportunity at the Lake Kivu Challenge!  The ADF is pleased to announce that a shortlist of three companies has been selected from the many applications received.

Both Exponent Technology Services and Unifly are participating at the Lake Kivu Challenge flying events at Karongi, Rwanda and will showcase their technology at the VIP Day site visit on February 4 and at the African Drone Forum Expo on February 5-7 in Kigali. They will also speak at the ADF Symposium. Skyy Network are unable to attend the ADF and LKC due to a company relocation from Australia to New York.

WHO

The African Drone Forum (ADF) seeks UTM Service Providers (UTM SPs) to exhibit their technology to key players in the emerging drone ecosystems throughout Africa, includes local and global drone companies, government officials, civil aviation regulators, and academia. The objective is to facilitate discussions between Civil Aviation Authorities (CAAs) and Industry and allow demonstrations of service provision using drone data from the Lake Kivu Challenge (LKC) Flying Competitions.

WHY

As the number or complexity of drone flights increases, several conditions will be necessary to foster safe, secure, efficient, affordable, respectful and resilient operations, in either segregated airspace or through integration with conventional (manned) aircraft.

The envisaged scope of the showcase opportunities at the ADF is that UTM SP companies will be granted access to one day of live drone data (either by a feed, setting up your own tracking receivers, or receiving a feed from the UTM SP umbrella) to demonstrate their full or partial UTM services. The extent of participation will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

These services can include some or all of the following (from the draft EASA opinion on U-Space Regulation, RMT.0230: high level regulatory framework for the U-Space):

• E-identification service;
• Geo-awareness service;
• Flight authorization service;
• Traffic information service;
• Tracking service;
• Weather information service; and
• Conformance monitoring service.