Reliably monitoring extensive areas of the sea is a major challenge for the coastguard and emergency relief services. Unmanned aircraft are expected to make a critical contribution to this in the future. In December 2012, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) simulated experimental unmanned flights over the Mediterranean. The virtual test flights showed that the interaction with regular air traffic would work properly. They are preparing for the first remotely controlled test flights around the southern Spanish city of Murcia in the summer of 2013. Read more
