Blue Lab is a female startup, led by Cinzia Coppola, which aims to promote projects in the aerospace sector, in particular the design and production of ELT-S, emergency locator transmitters to be activated in dangerous situations, seeking excellence in technical and operational performance.

The main objective is to increase personal safety in the transport sector, using the constant expansion of  GNSS satellite network with advanced digital services. Thanks to the availability of GNSS, accuracy improvements and the SAR beacon registry, success rates of search and rescue missions have been improved which led to saving thousands of lives over the past decades. However, not all 406MHz beacons produced are equipped with a Location Protocol: in 2017, only 142,000 beacons out of 218,000 (or 65%) were GNSS-enabled devices.

The proposal, thanks to a launch customer, was first addressed to the helicopter sector and foresees an ambitious development plan in aviation, maritime and drones. These items are compliant with ETSO C126, compact, light, ready for international market standards (multiconstellation networks), including high performance batteries and Galileo RLS. This service would provide an acknowledgement capability to the distress beacon confirming that the alert has been detected and located by the system; the RLS will rely on Galileo’s L1 navigation signal and will be available worldwide.

The business model was validated by the support of Management Innovation, with whom we participated in the EIT Digital 2022 call, obtaining A rank in the first evaluation gate. The partnership was extended to Finance Innovation to enhance the study of European markets, Fracarro UK for co-operation in the design of the antenna, Exprivia for software testing. The team also includes aerospace engineers with proven experience in satellite projects, collaborators for the necessary aeronautical authorizations, and the valuable managerial expertise of Michele Monaco and Elena Viezzoli of Thiene.org.

Blue Lab was also selected by ESA and the EBAN network as one of the 10 most promising European start-ups to participate, two weeks ago, in the SpaceUp Academy, from which many new international opportunities emerged. With the strong commitment of the entire management team, the lessons learned from the launch customer and the fruitful collaboration of all the European partners, a solid business model has been structured in line with the expectations of the end customers, to create a range of distinctive products and secure a strong position in the markets.