We are proud to announce that Denis Andrés Maigualema Quimbita, researcher at the SNA – Air Navigation Systems group of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), has been awarded the 1st Prize in the Airborne Category at the prestigious TRA VISIONS 2026 Young Researcher Competition, held during the Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2026 in Budapest.

The awarded research work, entitled:

“Resilient UAV Routes for Emergency Services Using 5G Networks”

addresses innovative approaches for improving the resilience and reliability of UAV operations supporting emergency services through advanced 5G-enabled communication technologies.

The TRA VISIONS awards recognise outstanding young researchers whose work contributes to the future of transport, mobility, sustainability and technological innovation across Europe. The competition is one of the main initiatives associated with the Transport Research Arena (TRA), the largest European conference on transport and mobility research.

The award was sponsored by the SESAR Joint Undertaking, highlighting the growing importance of research related to future air mobility, U-space services, advanced CNS technologies and resilient UAV operations.

The research was conducted within the framework of the SPIRIT-UCS project (“5G-enabled CNS for UAS”), funded by the MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the FSE+ under grant reference PID2022-141829OB-I00.

Beyond the award itself, this recognition represents an important milestone for the SNA research group and reinforces our commitment to innovation in the fields of U-space, CNS systems, surveillance technologies and future unmanned aviation operations.

Congratulations to Denis for this outstanding achievement and for representing both UPV and the SNA research group at such an important European forum.