Month: March 2024

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Royal Air Force Autonomous Collaborative Platform Strategy

The Royal Air Force’s (RAF’s) intent for use of Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP) in the Air domain.

The Defence Drone Strategy provides the core reference baseline for the RAF ACP Portfolio ensuring coherence for the introduction of new developments in capability, supported by lessons learnt in our recent past and in current conflicts.

Advances in human-machine teaming, AI and other technologies mean that the world of uncrewed systems is rapidly advancing towards the use of autonomy. The war in Ukraine has also highlighted the rapid evolution of weapon systems and tactics. The ACP strategy sets out how the RAF intends to take advantage of this technology, working closely with the Royal Navy, British Army, across MoD, with industry, and our trusted partners and allies. This collaborative endeavour will pursue the best solutions for UK Defence, supported by UK industry, to find options with the correct cost-benefit analysis to augment our forces.

Using emerging technologies, ACP will undertake critical roles that complement and enhance the operational effects achieved by our current and future crewed aircraft, acting as a force multiplier. Implementation of this strategy will reduce risks to personnel and provide us with the opportunity and means to learn, develop and fight faster than our adversaries, whilst maintaining a keen eye on the legal and ethical considerations.

“As we look to the future, it is clear that Autonomous Collaborative Platforms will play an important part in enhancing the mass, lethality and survivability of our combat air forces. Building on the Defence Drone Strategy and in close collaboration with the Royal Navy and Army, the RAF will focus on low-cost Autonomous Collaborative Platforms to augment the operations of our existing crewed combat air platforms. We expect to field an operational capability within the next year.”

Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton
Chief or the Air Staff

The strategy sets out what military capabilities and structural changes are required within the RAF to support this growth area, alongside the development of UK-based industry. Although uncrewed platforms are now commonplace, the strategy also highlights the key issues surrounding the law and autonomy as this technology matures.

27 March 2024

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uAvionix Awarded FAA Contract to Advance BVLOS Operations

uAvionix, a leader in avionics solutions for uncrewed and crewed aircraft, announced today that it has been awarded a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract to advance the commercial use of Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS). The contract aims to develop highly reliable Command and Control (C2) communications for extended Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations across challenging terrains. Partnering with the University of Alaska Fairbanks UAS Test Site, uAvionix will employ its Link Executive Manager (LEM) to fuse LTE, Iridium SATCOM, and C-Band communications links to deliver uninterrupted and reliable C2 during long-range BVLOS flights along an Alaskan pipeline.

Reliance on a single link or common infrastructure isn’t always feasible in remote and mountainous terrain. Having multiple, seamless connections to the aircraft from airborne and ground-based communications provides the safety and flexibility needed to reliably perform these complex operations. Flying for extended ranges with many transitions between communications paths and frequencies will provide the data needed to support FAA rule making and reinforce the concept that using UAS technology can be used safely and economically across all types of terrain and infrastructure.

Cyriel Kronenburg of uAvionix

The current practice for BVLOS flights in the National Airspace involves obtaining FAA waivers or exemptions, which often rely on a single active C2 link with a single alternate standby link. Challenging terrain conditions, such as those found in Alaska, can significantly impact the availability of both the primary and alternate links resulting in difficulties satisfying the risk analysis for the BVLOS approval, or worse a lost link condition and failure of the UAS mission. uAvionix, in collaboration with the FAA, will work on a system that integrates cellular networks, Iridium SATCOM, and aviation protected C-Band into an assured C2 communications system consisting of multiple concurrent links using both frequency and path diversity to minimize the risk of lost links over adverse topography.

This innovative system will be controlled by a Link Executive Manager (LEM) through the SkyLine cloud-based platform, ensuring seamless and automatic switching between radios to maintain optimal and uninterrupted communication irrespective of ground conditions. Test flights will take place at the Alaska UAS test site, where achieving path and link diversity is challenging due to limited cellular coverage, high tower installation costs and mountains that block radio frequency signals.

We have a consistent track record of collaboration and success with the FAA. This contract builds upon that success and demonstrates our commitment to advancing BVLOS operations for the industry. By developing Command and Control Communications Service Provider (C2CSP) infrastructure, we are advancing the commercial viability of UAS operations while maintaining safety and efficiency for UAS operators.

Christian Ramsey, Managing Director for Uncrewed Aviation at uAvionix

The initiative represents a significant step towards making BVLOS operations a more regular part of the UAS industry and follows swiftly on the heels of uAvionix receiving an FAA Exemption to fly BVLOS on the Vantis network that utilizes the uAvionix C2CSP infrastructure to connect other technologies for mission control and detect and avoid.

27 March 2024

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New Future Flight Standards Landscape is now live

Discover the latest best practice for innovation in air mobility, with this interactive Future Flight Standards landscape from BSI, created with support from Egis and backed by UK Research and Innovation.

The new, expanded, Future Flight Standards landscape now covers lots of key use cases. Just a few examples include:
➡️ Detect and avoid
➡️ Operation of uncrewed aircraft systems
➡️ New fuel sources and propulsion systems

Developed with support from Egis, and backed by UK Research and Innovation, the landscape is structured by key topic to make it easier to find relevant standards, from sustainability, digital technologies and communications, to safety, advanced air mobility and airspace.

Visit the Future Flight Standards Hub, to explore the interactive visualization.

22 March 2024

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What is an Accountable Manager and Why Does My Organisation Need One? Watch Again

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has announced changes to regulations classifying operators of drones and drone services.

Going forward, any organisation using or procuring drone services will be considered an operator, with vicarious liability falling to the company director or designated Accountable Manager. This presents challenges for organisations where drone operations are not the core business, use is fragmented across departments and locations, or operations span multiple geographies. Universities, schools, colleges, local authorities, construction firms or consultancies, and energy companies are especially vulnerable.

During this webinar, we will:

  • examine the challenges organisations face in controlling the safe and legal use of drones.
  • provide insight into critical areas demanding attention and improvement.
  • define the role of an Accountable Manager and their duties.
  • discuss how to identify the right candidate for the role, given the complex legal duties, and the benefits of adopting a standardised, best-practice approach. This enables drone operations to demonstrate safety, legal compliance, and due diligence to mitigate risks in a court of law, if necessary.
  • provide an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and share perspectives on how recent regulatory changes may impact organisational drone strategies. Various compliance options such as bringing operations in-house or utilising third-party auditing and oversight will be discussed.
  • provide a high-level checklist to help participants incorporate these considerations into their processes. This holistic view aims to empower attendees to help develop a comprehensive checklist that can be implemented to consistently facilitate safe and compliant flight operations, cultivating a positive culture of drone safety throughout an organisation.

All interested parties are invited to attend in order to gain valuable insights as the commercial drone industry continues its projected growth trajectory.

About the Speaker:

Andy Hugget, Global Training Manager & Global Regulations Specialist, Consortiq

Andy served in the British Army prior to becoming a law enforcement officer with Sussex Police for thirty years. Always on the Operations side of policing (Traffic, Firearms, Dogs, Helicopter Unit etc) he was also part of a General Aviation Team countering terrorism. As an emergency response drone pilot for Sussex and Surrey Police he undertook many differing roles piloting the police drones.

He founded his own company providing drone services prior to leaving the police and upon retirement worked full time in this role. He was approached by Consortiq to work as a freelance instructor delivering the UK based Unmanned Aircraft Qualification. Subsequently he moved into a full time role in Consortiq as the Global Training Manager. Andy holds both CAA and FAA qualifications for fixed wing and multi-rotor aircraft.

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Pioneering simulations pave the way for routine drone flights in the UK

The prospect of remotely piloted drones operating in and out of some of the UK’s busiest airports has taken a step closer to reality following a series of pioneering simulations by the air traffic management service, NATS.

The simulations, run at NATS’ head office in Hampshire, demonstrated how drones could be seamlessly integrated alongside other air traffic at a busy airport. This included drone operators filing flight plans, flying in and out of the airport and being safely deconflicted with other aircraft.

The leading work forms part of Project CAELUS, a UKRI industry collaboration of 16 partners including AGS Airports, University of Strathclyde, NATS and NHS Scotland, aiming to use drones to transport essential medical supplies throughout Scotland.

Drone-D0952a_Caelus_08032024

The project’s first test flight occurred at Glasgow Airport last year, with a drone flying to the nearby NHS Golden Jubilee hospital. The concept development and simulation work NATS has led on is essential to understanding how that one-off flight could be safely scaled up to include dozens of drones flying ‘Beyond Visual Line of Sight’ and delivering medicines and blood tests to patients across Scotland and potentially beyond.

The airspace integration was overseen by a new Airspace Manager function using new technology developed by NATS. As part of this proposed ‘concept of operations,’ direct voice communication between a drone operator and air traffic control would only be required by exception – including the kind of emergency scenario demonstrated during the simulations.

Richard Ellis, NATS New Airspace Users Director, said: “Everything we’re doing is striving towards enabling the seamless, safe integration of drones and other new airspace users into our skies. There is a lot of work still to do, including the development and approval of new technology and regulations, but I believe what we and our Project CAELUS partners are doing will help support that process and is taking us a step closer to an exciting future.”

Fiona Smith, AGS Airports Group Head of Aerodrome Strategy and Project CAELUS Director, said: “We have continued to see some valuable collaboration and innovation across Project CAELUS and this latest work led by NATS truly demonstrates our ambition to forge a new path.”

“Our first live flight trial last year was incredibly important and demonstrated a means of integrating drones into an airport environment.”

“This year, we look forward to showcasing many more demonstrations including a ramped up flying programme across Scotland and we are delighted to kick start that programme with this exciting NATS showcase”.

Hazel Dempsey, Caelus National Programme Manager from NHS Grampian added: “Exploring how drone technology could be usefully used as a way of delivering care to people who live in urban, remote, rural and island locations, is edging ever-closer to a reality.”

Project Caelus is a Future Flight Challenge programme jointly funded by UK Research and Innovation. Further test flights are planned for later this year.

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NATS Services and Altitude Angel partner to deliver Integrated Traffic Management Services Portfolio

The strategic partnership to support new airspace user integration across the UK.

NATS Services, the commercial arm of the UK’s leading ANSP and Altitude Angel, a global leader in unified traffic management (UTM) and creators of the 165 mile UK drone superhighway, have chosen the first day of Airspace World Expo in Geneva to announce a strategic commercial partnership which will revolutionise the way the sky is managed for new airspace users.

The combination of Altitude Angel’s GuardianUTM suite of technologies and NATS Services’ leading airspace management expertise will enable competitive and innovative services to integrate new airspace users, while maintaining safe operations for its existing commercial aviation customers.

This deal will also see GuardianUTM Flight Approval Services being deployed at some NATS-controlled airports later in 2024, allowing for digitally managed UTM flight requests and approvals and enhances situational awareness.

The partnership will also accelerate Altitude Angel’s roll-out of its transformative ARROW technology, which when fused with its GuardianUTM platform, detects and identifies all airspace users, enabling drones to fly BVLOS and share the airspace with crewed aviation safely and securely.

Supporting the development of New Airspace Users through airspace integration and the provision of new services is one of our strategic priorities. This partnership with Altitude Angel is a milestone in UK aviation, bringing together the technology, operational expertise and innovation that will allow us to further support the industry.

The combination of Altitude Angel’s UTM technologies and NATS’ deep understanding of air traffic and airspace management will allow us to further embrace the integration of this new generation of airspace users, while also continuing to deliver the very highest standards of safety and efficiency.

Guy Adams, Managing Director of NATS Services

Through this alliance, NATS and Altitude Angel bring together the unparalleled strength of air traffic control expertise with the world leading innovation of UTM.

“This partnership brings together in-depth knowledge, real-world experience, and, most importantly, a shared vision for a future where the skies are not just open but interconnected, where traditional and emerging aviation seamlessly coexist. Together, we will create an airspace which reflects the harmony of collaboration and the promise of a safer, more sustainable aviation future for all. We are pleased our leadership and innovation has been recognised by NATS as important to not only its future, but to the future of UK airspace.”

Richard Parker, CEO & Founder of Altitude Angel

18 March 2024

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ARPAS-UK Directors are thrilled to welcome Sarah Lay as a new Director of the Board.

Sarah’s experience within the aviation domain has given her a broad experience set, which has fed her passion for this industry and its combination of innovative technology and human interaction. Throughout her career, Sarah is proud to have been able to contribute to its development and improvement in areas such as safety management, safety training, safety culture and human performance. Whilst focussing on managing and delivering safety and operational efficiency improvement initiatives, she has a keen interest in understanding wider societal implications such as environmental safety, security and economic impacts. 

Sarah has been already appointed by the current board of directors, and will be confirmed at our next general meeting on 18 April 2024. 

Sarah brings complementary skills, knowledge and background to our organisation, and we’re excited that she joins the team.

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~ 2800 PDRA01 Holders + ~ 100 OSC holders in the Specific Category

Until DISCO is in place, the CAA’s Shared Services are in charge of processing the PDRA01 within the CAA. Based on their database, we can assess that there were 2838 PDRA01 holders in CY 2023, vs 3515 in CY2012. The numbers for the early months of 2024 tend to indicate a continued attrition rather than a stabilisation.

In addition, the Specific Category includes roughly 100 operators holding operational approvals based on Operating Safety Cases.

The numbers may indicate a trend that we feared: some operators may not renew because they are out of business; or they genuinely no longer need a PDRA01 and can fly within the Open category; or operators aren’t sure anymore if they should renew or not. The regulation is complex, it is difficult to follow it all, and they elect not to renew. The privileges attached to the PDRA01, now that the guidelines wrt flying close to uninvolved people are more restrictive, may no longer justify the effort of maintaining an Operations Manual and an Operational Authorisation.

Project DISCO should go live in the first week of April. Hopefully the digital platform will be easy to use, so that existing operators continue to renew.

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ARPAS-UK supports the introduction of Atypical Air Environments to unlock BVLOS opportunities.

Let’s each respond to the CAA’s consultation by April 2.

ARPAS-UK supports the introduction of the Atypical Air Environment policy, as an incremental step to facilitate BVLOS operations in lower risk environment, where no another aircraft is expected to be, for example just above assets that are inspected. These will already unlock a lot of economic value, and help the industry accumulate experience and flying hours in BVLOS.

We will respond to the consultation as an organisation. If you would like to get involved in our response, do let us know by emailing us at membership@arpas.uk, and join either or both REG SIG and/or BVLOS SIG.

To understand the proposed policy, you may want to listen to the podcast by Callum Holland from the CAA’s Future Safety and Innovation Team. Then please respond to the consultation as well by April 2. Compared to other consultations, it is pretty straight forward.

Link to Podcast
Link to Consultation (Closed 2 April 2024)

19 March 2024

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DfT published the Future of Flight Action Plan: Objective of BVLOS UAS operations in integrated airspace at scale in 2027

ARPAS-UK was one of the stakeholders involved in the co-design of the Future of Flight Action Plan and we support it. We have a collective roadmap that will help us shape the industry and take it to the next stage. It is the result of reasonable compromise among the parties, and now it is up to all of us to help deliver, step-by-step, in an iterative process.

Quite a lot of attention is focussed on the passenger carrying aircraft, also referred to as Advanced Air Mobility. The first milestone will be the demonstration for the first time in the UK of an eVTOL, piloted, in 2026.

Anne-Lise Scaillierez, CEO of ARPAS-UK, was interviewed on Sky News on the 18th, and a few questions were raised on that topic, as well as the need for vertiports.

You can access ARPAS-UK CEO’s interview on Sky News Here.

Now, the most important next step from our perspective is to deliver the first incremental milestones. For UAS, these are:

  • 2024: Demonstration o BVLOS UAS operations in non-segregated airspace, as part of the CAA sandbox programme and the Future of Flight programme
  • 2027: Routine BVLOS UAS operations in integrated airspace at scale.

In the interim, we support the introduction of the Atypical Air Environment policy. It is an incremental step to facilitate BVLOS operations in lower risk environment, where no another aircraft is expected to be, for example just above assets that are inspected. These will already unlock a lot of economic value, and help the industry accumulate experience and flying hours in BVLOS.

You can access The DfT publication here.