The SPADE project—Multi-purpose physical-cyber agri-forest drones ecosystem for governance and environmental observation—is a Horizon Europe funded initiative with 21 partners across 10 European countries. Running from 2022 with a four-year duration, SPADE addresses the use of drone technology in agriculture, forestry, and livestock management through a combination of platform development, AI-based analytics, and open ecosystem design.
Open calls and cascade funding
SPADE operates a cascade funding model, issuing open calls that invite SMEs, startups, and research organisations to contribute solutions to specific technical challenges. These challenges have included swarm communication and navigation, open-source tilted rotor drone systems, aerial image processing services, ML-based disease detection in crops, below-canopy forest data collection, ultralight self-levelling landing gear for quadrotor drones, and virtual fencing applications for livestock management.
This open call structure allows the broader European innovation ecosystem to contribute to the project’s objectives, with funded sub-projects typically receiving between €45,000 and €60,000 for seven-month development and validation cycles. The model demonstrates how EU programme frameworks can accelerate drone technology development by distributing innovation across a wide base of participants.
Technical challenges: landing gear for rugged terrain
One of SPADE’s specific challenges—the development of ultralight self-levelling landing gear for quadrotor drones—illustrates the practical requirements of agricultural and forestry drone deployment. Operating on uneven terrain, forest floors, and agricultural fields requires landing systems that can adapt to ground height variations while minimising added weight. The winning solution, BASIL, proposed a brake-activated self-levelling mechanism using telescoping carbon fibre legs—a mechanically simple, scalable, platform-agnostic approach.
This type of challenge-driven innovation addresses real operational barriers that prevent drone technology from moving from demonstration to routine deployment in agricultural and forestry contexts.
Implications for the Norwegian context
Norway’s forestry and agricultural sectors face many of the same challenges that SPADE addresses: large, remote operating areas; diverse terrain; and a need for data-driven decision-making. The technologies and approaches developed within SPADE—from swarm coordination to below-canopy data collection to precision landing—are directly relevant to Norwegian forestry operations, mountain agriculture, and livestock management. Participation in or engagement with EU programmes like SPADE provides access to validated technologies and proven integration patterns.
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