as “issues” with drones are increasing in number, so are the experiments with Remote ID and the concerns of the aviation community, law enforcement and regulators. The FAA has recently voiced an interest in finding a solution to remotely identify drones, and the upcoming EU/ EASA regulations also address this subject.
The goal is to better integrate drones alongside manned aircraft and to distinguish “cooperative” and “non-cooperative” drones, e.g. in control zones or restricted air traffic zones. Also to alleviate privacy issues, the public may want to be able to more concretely know what the drones in their vicinity are up to and are concerned. For the social acceptance of drones to go forward, such things need to be taken into consideration (as they are one of the stakeholders).
While I fully realize that the actual framework (both regulation-wise and technologically) has many things unresolved yet, I was wondering if this topic is on the radar with the Dev team?
As standards are being formed, it may be wise to follow the developments or possibly even enter the discussions, to hopefully have a word in implementation as well - and not be surprised by new requirements. Data exchange strategies play an important role in this.
If the devs find this is something to be considered further, even at this stage in the development, I can contribute some more pointers to relevant infos, if desired.
As some in the dev team are working professionally with drones, we are already some to participate in discussion on this matter on different country. Unfortunately, until there is an agreement, we probably won’t do more from ArduPilot side. And moreover, most of those identification are really linked to material used, what ArduPilot in not engage (we just do software autopilot)
When things will stabilize and mature, we will try to integrate the solution that suit the most … but I doubt we will be able to have every country specific regulation compatibility …
Just for knowledge, ArduPilot already got certification for BLOS/BLOVS/no-operator flights in some country for some specific applications!
Just to expand on that, a number of the dev team, plus a number of partners, are directly engaged or involved in UTM standards development and discussion with the relevant regulators.
As examples there’s a trial program in Queensland, Australia, a number of the trials in the USA, plus of course Matternet, involvement with ASTM and OpenDroneID, we pulled in some of NASA’s Icarus work a year or so ago, there’s an Asterix plugin for MAVProxy, Altitude Angel is linked into Missionplanner. A bunch of stuff.
For the “here and now”, adsb (including avoidance) has been implemented for several years. Until some clear guidance is provided by the regulators, most other stuff will likely sit in branches, not stable releases.
It’s a topic that is worth discussion and keeping on top of, but it can be confusing to separate what lobbyists and startups are pushing from what actually matters and makes sense.
Feel free to drop an email to regulatory@ardupilot.org if there are specific developments you think we should be aware of.
Thanks!
Good to hear that you have this on the radar already.
I agree on the one hand that implementing solutions which are still very much in flux makes limited sense as long as regulatory issues are not yet decided.
At the same time, taking part in setting standards and having a say the way things are developing is also a good idea - and at times may require implementing a temporary quick-fix solution, creating an API, just for a demonstrator, in order to be able to test it in a real-world ATM/ Telcom scenario with an ANSP or other airspace users…
I have actually been at various UAV conferences and seen other statements where it is clear that policy makers are looking to industry for guidance, and outright expect for the experts to actively participate in coming up with standards.
To leave this up to the Intel’s/ Thales’s/ Airbus’s/ Chinese etc. of the world could be shortsighted.
When I come across relevant developments, I will forward them to the e-mail address you provided. Thanks!
It happens that I came across the issue of availability of market-ready sense-and-avoid systems for UAVs. Has anyone seen such products?
My view is that while some (few) ADSB beacons for small UAVs do exist, no complete sense-and-avoid solution has been released, neither in isolated product for nor integrated in an autopilot.
True, there are no market-ready plug and play sense-and avoid systems yet.
In my view, part of the reason for this is that the rules of the air (for manned aviation) don’t take into account yet UAVs. For now, most BVLOS flights where avoidance could come into play happens in segregated airspace. For this to really expand and reach safe integration, it will take remoteID and Unmanned Traffic Management Systems which tie into existing Air Traffic Management. Differing air speeds and varying maneuverability don’t make things easier. Another issue yet to be resolved is a common altitude reference system leading to reliable vertical separation (more details on that by a EuroControl Publication).
Nevertheless, even now ADS-B awareness and Mission Planner plugins such as the Altitude Angel subscription can aid a UAV pilot in gaining better situational awareness.
If you are simply looking for obstacle avoidance, there are solutions possible now, as demonstrated by Ardupilot and others.
No, I was talking about ADSB-enabled sense-and-avoid for UAV-to-UAV operations. Regulators might also talk about UAV-to-Manned Aircraft avoidance, but the truth of the matter is that these two should not operate in the same airspace even though it doesn’t cost the regulators anything to raise this issue and trickle the cost of development to the UAV companies and developers.
Regarding obstacle avoidance we’re making progress, sure. We’ve still a ways to go, but it’s mostly a hardware problem, not a software one, in my opinion.
Well, I believe there will be operations of UAVs and manned flights in the same airspace. Think only of emergency, fire and police helicopters for example. I don’t see that the regulators are raising this for nothing. At least in Europe, the Air Navigation Service Providers are actively collaborating with companies from the UAV world to tackle this, as they are mandated to keep the airspace safe. If you leave standard developments only to manned aviation bodies, then the interests of the UAV community will certainly go under.
The EU Commission is aiming for fair access to airspace for UAVs/ Urban Air Mobility, but understandably, things of that magnitude don’t happen overnight.
For those based in Europe - there will be a EASA workshop coming up discussing these very subjects:
"EASA, together with the European Commission, has developed a preliminary draft regulatory framework containing high-level safety requirements on the establishment of U-space to enable competent authorities to set performance requirements, including environmental objectives, needed to satisfy traffic density and complexity of operations, setting high level requirements for the U-space services and service providers certification and that lays the foundation for innovative U-space services.
Specific topics that are expected to be raised during the workshop are: the interface with the current ATM environment in the U-space (airspace classification), the roles and responsibilities of the U-space actors, the types of services that may be provided, etc.
The aim of this workshop is to present this draft regulatory proposal, discuss about the principles that will govern U-space and consult with the stakeholders."
15/05/2019, 09:30 - 16:30, in Cologne/ Germany
if you have something to say, sign up and let the voice of the UAV industry be heard!