The 2018 European Drone Summit that took place the day before INTERGEO 2018 was designed to enable and support what organizers described as the "drone age". Put together by UAV Dach, the event pulled together politicians, experts and decision-makers in order to describe and discuss the gaps and challenges that exist between UAV technology and the European industry as a whole.

These challenges are what's standing in the way of fully enabling what many speakers described as the "drone age" that we're currently living in, and presenters that ranged from Intel's Anil Nanduri to the European Commission's Koen de Vos to UVS International's Peter van Blyenburgh discussed what it will mean to fully leverage drones in this new era. For many, doing so is a question of regulation and standards, as much of the technology to do what users of all types across the continent want to do currently exists, but the framework to safety and legally leverage this technology isn't as defined.

The event highlighted the power and possibilities of various solutions that ranged from the drone hardware showcased by Delair to global airspace management platforms like the one from AirMap all the way to AI solutions like the one from Neurala. DJI also used the event to announce the Phantom 4 RTK, which is the company's most compact and accurate low altitude mapping solution and should help redefine how drones are going to be thought of and leveraged as just another tool.

Discussions about U-Space/UTM development, air transport using UAS and what is really needed for the integration of drones in the airspace were just a few of the topics that were discussed in detail, along with predictions around what developments should dominate the headlines over the next year and beyond. Take a look below for some of our live coverage of the event, or check out our full coverage.