BT has taken a stake in start-up Altitude Angel in a move to develop a “drone corridor” linking logistics hubs.
Britain’s largest telecoms group will invest £5 million in the company in exchange for a stake in the business and a seat on the board.
Altitude Angel is developing Project Skyway, a 165-mile airspace in which drones will fly across southern England and the Midlands. When operational, the project would be the world’s largest and longest drone superhighway.
Drone corridors could be used to transport both retail orders and commercial goods. It is also hoped that the concept would provide support to the emergency services, such as the rapid transport of medical supplies.
Altitude Angel said the investment will allow it to speed up the roll-out of its Arrow technology, which detects and identifies drones while providing automated navigation, allowing them to safely share the skies with aircraft.
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Dave Pankhurst, director of drones at BT’s digital hub, Etc, said that the technology operates by “looking for drones and other airspace users to create a form of situational awareness of what’s going on in the sky”.
BT “has a volume of infrastructure across the country where we can locate Altitude Angels’ capabilities to provide it with the power and communications it needs to provide that service”.
BT will be the main reseller of Altitude Angel’s software, as well as offering services such as commercial support for drone deliveries and drone inspections of critical infrastructure.
Plans for the long-term expansion of the project are under way and it is hoped that further development will see towns and cities, as well as transport and package delivery hubs, connected.
The project is backed by UK Research and Innovation, a public body that directs funding through its future flight programme to bankroll the development of new electric, hydrogen and autonomous air vehicles.
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Richard Parker, chief executive and founder of Altitude Angel, said: “With BT Group, we have a partner that shares our ambition to make automated commercial drone operations at scale in the UK a day-to-day reality.”
The partnership would allow the company to use BT’s communications infrastructure, ensuring that the drone network could be scaled up.
BT Group launched a new unit, Digital, in 2021 with the aim of developing products, platforms and services in key areas. Led by Harmeen Mehta, it secured its first contract last year, signing a £30 million deal with technology workforce business Distributed.
Digital created its incubation hub, Etc, last year. The new unit is focused on innovations in areas that are adjacent to BT’s operations, among them drones, fintech and healthtech.
