Description
SPADE is a Horizon Europe project coordinated by the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas in Greece with 21 partners from 10 countries. The project develops an intelligent, open ecosystem for multipurpose drones, combining swarms, autonomous, and heavy-lift UAVs. Pilot projects demonstrate applications in precision crop production, forest operations, and livestock monitoring.
Technology
SPADE combines multi-purpose drones UAVs through swarm, tethered, and heavy-lift models with cloud-based services and digital twins, tested in pilot use cases. The project deploys IoT sensors and remote-sensing payloads on drones, uses GIS, GPS for navigation and applies Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning to analyze data and support tasks such as precision spraying, forest inventory and pasture monitoring. SPADE validates these technologies through real farming and forestry pilots and shares results via an open-source data and service ecosystem, complemented by webinars, training materials and documented use cases.
Target
The project serves universities, research institutes, cooperatives, public agencies and medium-large scale farms. Pilots directly involve actors in Spain, Norway and Greece, while open calls extend the ecosystem to additional projects.
Business model
SPADE is funded under the Horizon Europe programme, grant agreement No. 101060778, with an overall budget of about EUR 5.8 million. The consortium partners are funded to design, test and demonstrate the SPADE drone ecosystem, and the project outputs are made freely accessible to users.
Impact
SPADE aims to deliver tested drone solutions for crop monitoring, forest inventory, and animal welfare. The project can contribute to reducing deforestation, improving resource efficiency, and building climate resilience.
Partners
Acceligence LtD; Adrestia Research and Development Private Company; AIDEAS OU; Diputación de Ávila; Security & Defense chez Delair; Johanniter Österreich Ausbildung und Forschung gem. GmbH; Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry; Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania; Squaredev; Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha; Unparallel Innovation Lda; Universidad de Salamanca
Four Betters
Better production
Better environment
Better life
