Drone cage in Munich: University of the Bundeswehr opens facility for flight tests

A new drone cage was officially inaugurated on 23 July at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, the university of the German armed forces. It is meant to allow flight tests with drones to run safely and enable demanding research under realistic conditions.

At 40 metres wide and 20 metres high and deep, the drone cage offers enough space for complex experiments that remain controlled and safe.

As the university emphasises, drone technology has long mattered beyond the military and is used in civil protection, disaster relief and environmental and biodiversity monitoring. A secure environment for experiments is therefore all the more important.

What is researched in the drone cage

Research topics include autonomous drone swarms, technologies for countering unmanned aircraft systems (counter-UAS), drone operations in environments where the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is disrupted, and intelligent aerial robotics. Hardware-in-the-loop tests, in which real hardware interacts with simulated environments, are also planned.

The project was led by Jane Jean Kiam and Matthias Gerdts and is part of the dtec.bw project MissionLab. Support came from Axel Schulte and Peter Stütz.