Unmanned Vs. Manned: How Civil UAS is Shaping Up in Europe

The implementation roadmap calls for initial integration of civil UAS by 2016, but even the members and stakeholders don’t know if it’s possible to get the burgeoning technology on track with the rest of implementation. “It’s hard to say if we’re going to be fully integrated with everything by 2020 or 2025,” said Michael Standar, chief of international relations at SESAR JU, told Avionics Magazine. Standar believes that the timing of integration depends on the type of operations for civil UAS. “If it’s very low level, like visual line of sight for example, that integration is already happening so it’s just a matter of harmonizing across all countries.

That will happen by 2016 for sure. But beyond initial line of sight with communications, is uncertain.” When it comes to airspace classes, integration becomes more of an issue around busy hubs of manned aviation, such as airports, where there needs to be a highly structured application of technology. In many places in Europe, as with the FAA’s recent approval of UAS for use in film production, operations below 500 feet are already in operation. But beyond low-level UAS, there’s still much to be determined. “It’s when you go beyond visual line of sight that it’s a bit of an issue. Then you need to have some sort of communications equipment on the aircraft to be sure you know what it’s doing,” Standar says. “

[Current low-level UAS] are all operating under very strict conditions because they cannot be mixed up with manned vehicles unless they have the same capabilities as man.” As of now, they don’t have those capabilities. Operators and researchers see this disconnect with developing technology as well.

According to Antidio Viguria head of avionics and UAS at ATLAS flight test center, Spain’s first facility exclusively devoted to testing technologies and light UAS, many are looking to the government agencies to fill these technology and legislation gaps. “Sense and avoid (or Detect and Avoid) is still a major issue for the integration of UAS in the non-segregated airspace.

The challenge is even greater for light [Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems] RPAS (less than 150Kg MTOW) since the payload capacity is much more reduced in this category … The sense and avoid issue is a major problem that will need some years of R&D to start getting closer to an operational solution. In this sense, it is fundamentally the contribution of the [European Commission] EC and national governments that have the power to support this basic activity,” said Viguria during an interview with Avionics Magazine.

Business opportunities for civil UAS are on the rise throughout Spain, including surveillance, prevention of brush fires, inspection of field crops in agriculture, among others, but the researchers believe there is still much work to be done not only in the areas of sense-and-avoid, but also with communications and GPS navigation. “The communication systems and transponders need to be further developed and adapted to the special needs of the UAS and its operations. The strong dependency of GPS with the navigation system of light UAS is also an issue when safety requirements start to be considered,” Viguria added, noting that technological developments in these and other areas are continuing to make UAS more affordable, driving business opportunities.

While technical issues are prevalent for UAS, Standar maintains that technology is not the only issue. Instead, harmonizing rules for airspace is going to be a much larger challenge. “One of the main hurdles here is to get the large community of RPAS operators to understand the notion of operating in the airspace together with other traffic. There are very homogenous groups inside aviation — airlines, business aviation, general aviation, all these are familiar with the rules of the game. Here we have a completely new community of people that do things because it’s connected to a business value in an area where we’ve never experienced aviation as such,” he said. And on top of the new community that civil UAS have created is the old problem of uniting all European countries under one set of regulations.  “The problem we have in Europe is that 15 countries have RPAS regulations but they’re not harmonized, which means that approvals might differ from one state to another,” Standar said. It’s not just the dozens of European countries that SESAR JU has to work with, but the commission is reaching across the pond as well to attempt to coordinate with the FAA’s application of NextGen.

“At the end of the day it’s the vehicle that will actually say what kinds of regulations will need to come into place,” Standar said. “But it’s an important area for us in Europe that we don’t do something in standard isolation. We need to work together with the FAA, involving the regulatory authorities, and come up with something that can at least harmonize the content.”

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