A dock on top of Tara Street
The project Dockstation sits on top of Dublin Fire Brigade’s Tara Street headquarters, at the centre of a planned 5 km operational area over the city.
Dock location, on Dublin Fire Brigade HQ
Planned radius of the operational area
Mon–Fri live U-Space hours from Month 8
Stage 1 report at Month 10, Stage 2 at Month 15
From call-out to review
Tasking
A scheduled city-services task or an incident call-out starts a mission.
Authorisation
The flight is authorised and tracked through the USSP.
Launch
The drone leaves the dock and flies to the site, beyond visual line of sight.
Live view
A live overhead video feed reaches the operator or incident command.
Capture
Imagery and flight data are captured into the Digital Twin.
Review
Mission playback and data review support assessment and evidence.
Two stages of Dockstation testing
Dockstation Performance, Stage 1
Initial testing and assessment of the Dockstation within Dublin City U-Space, supporting DCC public services.
Dockstation Performance, Stage 2
Advanced testing integrated with multi-operator activity, including DCC, Dublin Fire Brigade, An Garda Síochána, Civil Defence, the Coast Guard and Dublin Port where relevant.
Compliance at every dock site
Dockstation demonstrators are provided by GeoAerospace.
Aviation
Confirm the category (Open, Specific or Certified) and SORA/PDRA requirements for each dock site
Assess BVLOS range and flight paths for each operation
Consider U-Space requirements for every flight
Data protection
A data protection impact assessment for each dock site
Retention limits and anonymisation of faces and plates as standard procedure
Clear data residency and storage architecture
Cybersecurity
Alignment with NCSC guidance, NIS2, ISO 27001 and Cyber Fundamentals (CyFun)
Breach notification plan covering dock storage as well as the cloud
AI and human oversight
Each on-board AI function classified separately under the EU AI Act
Human oversight of automatic launch and tracking triggers
Automatic logging of autonomous triggers and decisions