Market size: €14.5 billion by 2030

“With the right framework in place, the drone services market in Europe could by 2030 reach
a value of €14.5 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.3%, and create 145,000
jobs in the EU28″.

Technological synergies between civil, security and defense – and presumably R&D funding synergies as well.

“The drone eco-system also includes the defence/military dimension for the purpose of
achieving technological synergies between civil, security and defence sectors.”

Renaming away from drone to Innovative Aerial Services (IAS) that embraces ”Aerial Operations“ (with drones) and Innovative Air Mobility“ (with eVTOL).

“On the civil side, the drone services market includes three segments which are interlinked: the new Innovative Aerial Services (IAS), including two segments: ”Aerial Operations“ (surveillance, inspection, mapping, imaging, …), and “Innovative Air Mobility“ (IAM), covering international, regional and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and thirdly, ”U-space“. Although first IAM operations are expected to be conducted with manned eVTOL aircraft, such operations will likely be in the future performed on similar platforms but remotely piloted and then fully autonomous.”

List of 19 Flagship Actions:

1. adopt amendments to the Standardised European Rules of the Air and the Air Traffic Management/Air Navigation Services Regulation to safely integrate drone and piloted eVTOL operations;
2. promote coordinated research on integrated Communication, Navigation and Surveillance technologies;
3. adopt new European standard scenarios for low to medium risk aerial operations;
4. adopt rules for the ‘certified’ category of drone operations, addressing the initial and continued airworthiness of drones subject to certification; and the operational requirements applicable to manned VTOL-capable aircraft;
5. adopt rules for the design and operations of vertiports under the scope of EASA Basic Regulation;
6. develop balanced economic and financial requirements for licensing of drone operators.
7. fund the creation of an online platform to support a sustainable IAM implementation by authorities, cities, industry and stakeholders;
8. adopt training and competences requirements for remote pilots and pilots of VTOL aircraft.
   
   
   List of Actions to be implemented by the European Commission to strengthen the European drone civil, security and defence industry capabilities and synergies . The Commission intends to:
9. continue to provide funding for R&I on drones and their integration into the airspace under the Horizon Europe programme and the European Defence Fund;
10. set up a coordinated series of calls under the existing EU instruments and EIB loans to support a new flagship project on ‘drone technologies’;
11. consider possible amendments to the existing financing/funding framework to ensure a consistent approach in support of dual-use research and innovation to improve synergies between civil and defence instruments;
12. develop a Strategic Drone Technology Roadmap in order to identify priority areas to boost research and innovation, reduce existing strategic dependencies and avoid the emergence of new ones;
13. coordinate with other relevant EU actors a common approach with the aim of providing sufficient radio frequencies spectrum for drone operations;
14. set up an EU network on civil-defence drone testing centres to facilitate exchanges between civilian and defence sectors;
15. encourage all relevant actors to further align certification requirements for civil and military applications towards those set by EASA while considering military specificities and existing military certification standards;
16. adopt new standard scenarios for civil operations that could facilitate corresponding military use cases;
17. adopt a counter-drone package;
18. adopt an amendment to the aviation security rules aiming to ensure that aviation authorities and airports increase their resilience when faced with the risks posed by drones;
19. define criteria for a voluntary “European Trusted Drone” label

ALS 2 Dec 2022