ITACA aims to study and develop a mobile telecommunications system that can be used in the aftermath of natural disasters (floods, landslides, avalanches, ...) or in civil protection emergencies, to re-establish or create a new telecommunications infrastructure to serve mountain communities or rescue operators. It will also be applicable as a communication infrastructure for areas, particularly mountainous areas, not reached by communication technologies or to provide access to particular communication systems such as 5G.

The transport carrier will be an airship without a pilot on board, operating in automatic or tele-operated mode. The regulatory framework will be studied in order to include the aerostat in the UTM airspace. The limitations of use will be defined and the flight control system will be designed. An automatic or semi-automatic aerostat anchoring system will be designed, which allows the aerostat to maintain its pre-set geographical position. Transmission/connection methodology will be studied, also in multi-hop, to connect the communication system also to fixed infrastructures at great distances.

At least three demonstration sites will be identified through the NOI Techpark, in addition to the Corvara landslide site already taken as a reference for this project. The system will be developed jointly with the industrial and academic partners of Spoke 1 interested in the activity.

The ITACA project is carried out together with the partner FOS SpA.