Research project

Open Skies Cornwall

Project overview

The Open Skies Cornwall project has been investigating the best use of drones for multiple use cases in Cornwall, including creating ‘sky highways’ for drone delivery services such as medical supplies and parcels over Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and aerial surveillance work.

Providing specialist inputs, the University of Southampton supports the Open Skies Cornwall project with regards to medical stability testing and the development of new airspace management solutions.

This is a £2.4 million project, working with multiple partners including Royal Mail, NHS Kernow and Falmouth Harbour.


For further information and related news, see:

DronePrep: https://droneprep.uk/news/droneprep-and-royal-mail-drone-delivery-to-the-scilly-isles/

Future Flight Standards hub: https://future-flight.bsigroup.com/clubs/8-open-skies-cornwall/

Staff

Lead researcher

Professor Tom Cherrett

Head of Department

Research interests

  • Understanding and improving the distribution of goods and the management of freight vehicles in urban areas, including the supply of goods to hospitals and the use of consolidation centres; 
  • How optimisation techniques can be used to improve system efficiency and in what ways Intelligent Transport Systems (smart tagging of assets and the use of smartphones) can improve operating efficiency; 
  • Approaches to more effectively collect and manage the movement of waste in terms of both household domestic waste collection strategies, Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) management and joint domestic/commercial waste collection strategies. He has worked on a number of research projects in these specific areas: (Department for Transport grant PPAD 9/142/034, ‘Optimising vehicles undertaking waste collections' GR/S79626/01, SUE project 55 ‘Transport and Logistics'; EP/D043328/1, ‘Green Logistics'.
Connect with Tom
Other researchers

Dr Andy Oakey BEng, PhD

Research Fellow
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Professor James Scanlan

Professor of Design
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Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Research outputs