U-space concept of operations: A key enabler for opening airspace to emerging low-altitude operations

Opening the sky to new classes of airspace user is a political and economic imperative for the European Union. Drone industries have a significant potential for economical growth according to the latest estimations. To enable this growth safely and efficiently, the CORUS project has developed a concept of operations for drones flying in Europe in very low-level airspace, which they have to share that space with manned aviation, and quite soon with urban air mobility aircraft as well. U-space services and the development of smart, automated, interoperable, and sustainable traffic management solutions are presented as the key enabler for achieving this high level of integration. In this paper, we present the U-space concept of operations (ConOps), produced around three new types of airspace volume, called X, Y, and Z, and the relevant U-space services that will need to be supplied in each of these. The paper also describes the reference high-level U-space architecture using the European air traffic management architecture methodology. Finally, the paper proposes the basis for the aircraft separation standards applicable by each volume, to be used by the conflict detection and resolution services of U-space.This work has been partially funded by the SESAR Joint Undertaking, a body of the European Commission, under grant H2020 RIA-763551 and by the Ministry of Economy and Enterprise of Spain under contract TRA2016-77012-R.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Drones-as-a-Service (DaaS) : An analysis of the Operator as Service Provider and its potential liabilities under light of Regulation (EU) 2019/947

Giving the consolidation of a framework that allows for the operations of drones for commercial purposes by the new implemented Regulation (EU) 2019/947 on the rules and procedures for the operation of unmanned aircraft, this thesis introduces the reader to both the origin of the technology, the potential business applications of drones in the civil environment, and the current provisions regarding the risk-based operational characteristics of the Regulation as means to analyse the previously existing air and contractual law’s provisions. Through the exploration of the relevant legal principles and regulatory guidelines available for the interpretation of liability assignment and applicability, and by comparing the regulation to the contractual model in order to provide a deeper understanding of how the technology can be commercialized on a Drone-as-a-Service model, the author presents the relevant need of further legislation addressing the application of liability regimes harmonization between Member States from the perspective of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operator to satisfy the modern Cloud-Based Services Agreements model and allow the use of Internet as a platform for cross-jurisdictional performance. The first chapter revolves around the historical development and the growing civil interest in the application of drones to activities as a novel, as well as to already established activities that are currently performed by different technologies. Furthermore, it presents the possibility of its characterisation under the framework currently employed by cloud-based services regarding its commercial contractual format. The second chapter focuses on introducing the new Regulations (EU) 2019/947 and 2019/945, which have set the legal and regulatory frame for the safe conduction of activities of unmanned aircrafts, including the principles that served as base for the development of the provision;, the operational rules; machinery requirements and classifications; and the categories’ classification system that have been created for risk assessment. Overall, the frame serves as a guide for anyone interested in venturing in this business. The third chapter explores the international laws and EU air laws that will influence the ruling and potential jurisprudence regarding liability decisions. It aims at presenting both the relevance of Member States autonomy over regulatory decisions and importance towards contractual liabilities disputes. The focus is strongly focused on Operators that will be employed by service providers under the conceptualised cloud-based services agreements contracts framework. Finally, the thesis presents its conclusions and recommendations towards the commercial parties and legislators

Urban Air Mobility Market Study

The Booz Allen Team explored market size and potential barriers to Urban Air Mobility (UAM) by focusing on three potential markets – Airport Shuttle, Air Taxi, and Air Ambulance. We found that the Airport Shuttle and Air Taxi markets are viable, with a significant total available market value in the U.S. of $500 billion, for a fully unconstrained scenario. In this unconstrained best-case scenario, passengers would have the ability to access and fly a UAM at any time, from any location to any destination, without being hindered by constraints such as weather, infrastructure, or traffic volume. Significant legal and regulatory, weather, certification, public perception, and infrastructure constraints exist, which reduce the market potential for these applications to only about 0.5$2.5 billion, in the near term. However, we determined that these constraints can be addressed through ongoing intra-governmental partnerships, government and industry collaboration, strong industry commitment, and existing legal and regulatory enablers. We found that the Air Ambulance market is not a viable market if served by electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles due to technology constraints but may potentially be viable if a hybrid VTOL aircraft are utilized

UAS Safety in Non-Segregated Airspace

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are set to become part of everyday air traffic operations perhaps within the next few years; however there are significant challenges that need to be addressed in order to seamlessly introduce UAS into non segregated airspace. This chapter discusses some of the identified safety challenges in achieving this objective in the context of the current regulatory framework. It also takes a look at how one might rigorously argue the safety of UAS operations in non-segregated airspace from an Air Traffic Management (ATM) perspective. The chapter draws upon the experience of the authors’ in the UAS domain, more specifically the lessons learnt from a number of safety assessments for flying UAS as Operational or General Air Traffic (OAT or GAT) inside and outside segregated airspace. Most UAS operations are currently constrained to designated danger areas or within temporary restricted areas of airspace, commonly known as segregated airspace, or are flown under special arrangements over the sea. On some occasions, UAS operations are permitted in an extremely limited environment outside segregated airspace. To exploit fully the unique operational capabilities of current and future UAS and thus realise the potential commercial benefits of UAS, there is a desire to be able to access all classes of airspace and operate across national borders and airspace boundaries. Such operations must be acceptably safe but regulation should not become so inflexible or burdensome that the commercial benefits are lost. The viability of the commercial market for UAS especially in the civil market is heavily dependent on unfettered access to the same airspace as manned civilian operations. Whilst it is essential that UAS demonstrate an equivalent level of safety compared to manned operations the current regulatory framework has evolved around the concept of the pilot-inthe-cockpit. There is a need to develop UAS solutions that assure an equivalent level of safety for UAS operations, which in turn will require adaptation of the current regulatory framework to allow for the concept of the pilot-not-in-the-cockpit without compromising the safety of other airspace users. One of the major issues facing UAS operations is the demonstration of equivalence (in particular for See and Avoid) in the context of an evolving ATM environment. It is very important to understand that the current ATM environment is not static. Achieving equivalence with manned operations is not a fixed target as there are many significant changes proposed that aim to improve operational efficiency and performance or enhance safety. On the whole proposed changes to the ATM environment could be seen Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

System elements required to guarantee the reliability, availability and integrity of decision-making information in a complex airborne autonomous system

Current air traffic management systems are centred on piloted aircraft, in which all the main decisions are made by humans. In the world of autonomous vehicles, there will be a driving need for decisions to be made by the system rather than by humans due to the benefits of more automation such as reducing the likelihood of human error, handling more air traffic in national airspace safely, providing prior warnings of potential conflicts etc. The system will have to decide on courses of action that will have highly safety critical consequences. One way to ensure these decisions are robust is to guarantee that the information being used for the decision is valid and of very high integrity. [Continues.

Preliminary Recommendations for the Collection, Storage, and Analysis of UAS Safety Data

Although the use of UASs in military and public service operations is proliferating, civilian use of UASs remains limited in the United States today. With efforts underway to accommodate and integrate UASs into the NAS, a proactive understanding of safety issues, i.e., the unique hazards and the corresponding risks that UASs pose not only through their operations for commercial purposes, but also to existing operations in the NAS, is especially important so as to (a) support the development of a sound regulatory basis, (b) regulate, design and properly equip UASs, and (c) effectively mitigate the risks posed. Data, especially about system and component failures, incidents, and accidents, provides valuable insight into how performance and operational capabilities/limitations contribute to hazards. Since the majority of UAS operations today take place in a context that is significantly different from the norm in civil aviation, i.e., with different operational goals and standards, identifying that which constitutes useful and sufficient data on UASs and their operations is a substantial research challenge

Architecting Integrated System Health Management for Airworthiness

Integrated System Health Management (ISHM) for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) has been a new area of research - seeking to provide situational awareness to mission and maintenance operations, and for improved decision-making with increased self-autonomy. This research effort developed an analytic architecture and an associated discrete-event simulation using Arena to investigate the potential benefits of ISHM implementation onboard an UAS. The objective of this research is two-fold: firstly, to achieve continued airworthiness by investigating the potential extension of UAS expected lifetime through ISHM implementation, and secondly, to reduce life cycle costs by implementing a Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) policy with better failure predictions made possible with ISHM. Through a series of design experiments, it was shown that ISHM presented the most cost-effective improvement over baseline systems in situations where the reliability of the UAS is poor (relative to manned systems) and the baseline sensor exhibited poor qualities in terms of missed detection and false alarm rates. From the simulation results of the test scenarios, it was observed that failure occurrence rates, sensor quality characteristics and ISHM performance specifications were significant factors in determining the output responses of the model. The desired outcome of this research seeks to provide potential designers with top-level performance specifications of an ISHM system based on specified airworthiness and maintenance requirements for the envisaged ISHM-enabled UAS

Integration of UTM and U-Space on Norwegian continental shelf

In this master thesis, we present an overview of the U-Space and Regulations in Europe, while also taking into consideration the progression of the integration of both parts in Norwegian airspace over the Norwegian continental shelf. This thesis is mainly separated into three parts. The first part is taking a look into the European Union's roadmap/plan for establishing an Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) and how they plan to develop their system into a single European sky. The end goal is that essentially every operator of a drone can do so all over Europe without having any issues with crossing borders or different regulations. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to a detailed insight into the technical side of a UTM, the different layers, examples of which systems are the most relevant to be utilized on the Norwegian continental shelf. The third part of this thesis is dedicated to looking at the regulatory side of things, in regards of the UTM system in itself, different factors of drone operations, requirements for every part of an operation. In addition, discussing and concluding about everything we have been though in the thesis. Additionally, there are uses cases where everything comes together to see how it would work in practise and in certain scenarios. In the final part of the thesis the previous parts of the project will be discussed, as well as drawing final conclusions to the project

Using Drones in Internal and External Audits: An Exploratory Framework

Recently the FAA relaxed restrictions on the use of drones or Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) for commercial purposes. Markets for commercial drone use are in the technology trigger phase of the Gartner Group’s Hyper Cycle, with developments occurring rapidly in real estate, agriculture (farming), the film industry, insurance, and other areas. Examination and inspection applications of drones have been proposed in heavy industry and cell tower inspection. Previous research suggests an incremental structure for implementing technological innovations such as continuous auditing (CA). In this paper these proposals are expanded to include the additional requirements to add drone technologies. This structure is extended here by (1) defining the use of drones in audit environments, with emphasis on the continuous versus occasional use of drone technologies, (2) extending the technical adoption architecture to include the use of drones, and (3) considering the types of drone usages amenable to both internal and external audits. A specific architecture is proposed here to prototype inventory counts in large warehouses or open-air inventories and that satisfies the suggested requirements. Additionally, this proposal adds value to the current research by extending the discussion of technology adoption in the Alles, Kogan, and Vasarhelyi (2008) paper to include the use of drones in many different audit environments by enumerating the usage types of drones in audit settings and by considering the prototype of such a system