Making drone activity safe in the skies above Europe

Drones are rapidly becoming part of daily life: They provide effective infrastructure inspection and maintenance tools; they carry out photographic and survey functions; and they support emergency services. The European Drones Outlook Study¹ estimates as many as 400,000 drones will be providing services in low-level airspace by 2050, and a total market value in excess of €10 billion annually by 2035. A robust framework that supports commercial and leisure operations will be essential to support the investment already underway by industry and operators. Airports in particular will need to invest in equipment to protect against rogue drones, whilst ensuring commercial operations.

The European Commission recognised the need to provide a safe and secure environment for drone operations when it launched its U-space initiative in the ‘Warsaw Declaration’ of November 2016. U-space is a set of services and procedures relying on a high level of digitalisation and automation of functions to support safe, efficient and secure access to low-level airspace for a large number of drones. It provides an enabling framework to support routine drone operations below 120m and addresses missions including operations in and around airports. Ultimately, U-space will enable complex drone operations with a high degree of automation to take place in all types of operational environments.

Drones are rapidly becoming part of daily life: They provide effective infrastructure inspection and maintenance tools; they carry out photographic and survey functions; and they support emergency services. The European Drones Outlook Study¹ estimates as many as 400,000 drones will be providing services in low-level airspace by 2050, and a total market value in excess of €10 billion annually by 2035. A robust framework that supports commercial and leisure operations will be essential to support the investment already underway by industry and operators. Airports in particular will need to invest in equipment to protect against rogue drones, whilst ensuring commercial operations.

The European Commission recognised the need to provide a safe and secure environment for drone operations when it launched its U-space initiative in the ‘Warsaw Declaration’ of November 2016. U-space is a set of services and procedures relying on a high level of digitalisation and automation of functions to support safe, efficient and secure access to low-level airspace for a large number of drones. It provides an enabling framework to support routine drone operations below 120m and addresses missions including operations in and around airports. Ultimately, U-space will enable complex drone operations with a high degree of automation to take place in all types of operational environments.

U-space building blocks

The launch of U-space set in motion a series of activities across Europe directed towards the development of appropriate rules and regulations, technical and operational requirements capable of supporting future autonomous operations. The SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) is very much part of this pan-European effort, having received the mandate from the European Commission to coordinate all research and development activities related to U-space and drone integration.

In 2017, we released the U-space Blueprint², setting out the vision and steps for the progressive deployment of U-space services from foundation services, such as flight planning, flight approval and tracking, to more complex operations in dense airspace requiring greater levels of automation and connectivity. Building on this, we created a roadmap for the safe integration of drones into all classes of airspace³ which outlines the steps needed for a coordinated implementation of solutions to enable larger drones alongside commercial airspace. The roadmap will be included in the next edition of the European ATM Master Plan⁴, to be published this year.

We then launched a series of exploratory projects with funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 budget, addressing the concept of drone operations, critical communications, surveillance and tracking, information management, aircraft systems, ground-based technologies, cyber-resilience and geo-fencing. These capabilities enable the progressive deployment of services over time, starting in 2019 with U-space foundation services. The projects bring together an unprecedented number and range of actors from traditional aviation, but also new entrants, including start-ups, SMEs, research institutes, universities, drone operators as well as service providers, airports, local/city authorities, law enforcement agencies and civil aviation authorities.

Full speed ahead

In 2018 we launched a series of demonstration projects, co-funded by the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility in order to show the maturity of the services and capabilities emerging from our research projects. New players with knowledge of autonomous operations and mobile communications participate alongside SESAR JU, EASA, industry players and standards agencies. Running until the end of 2019, this enlarged SESAR family of stakeholders have programmed a series of demonstrations in several cities and rural locations in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

Together these demonstrations aim to show the readiness of U-space services to manage a broad range of drone operations and related applications, and their interaction with manned aviation. These range from parcel deliveries between two dense urban locations, medical emergencies and police interventions, as well as air taxi trials between airports and nearby cities. The leisure user is also catered for, with projects demonstrating how private drone operators can benefit from U-space services.

Demonstrators are also taking place outside SESAR. To bring in this broader pool of activities and speed up the deployment of drone services, the European Commission launched the European Network of Demonstrators in October 2018. The network establishes important links with regulatory bodies, such as EASA, tasked by the Commission with drafting rules to govern the safe integration of drones into manned airspace. The SESAR JU research and demonstration help identify the operational requirements needed for this regulatory framework. We also work closely with the European standards agency, EUROCAE, and support wider standardisation work by ICAO, in particular ICAO’s Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS) for drones operating in manned airspace due for implementation in 2023.

EASA regulation will be critical for the expansion of the drone service market since it will create a common EU market for drones by harmonising operations across Europe. The European Commission adopted EASA’s proposed regulations in March 2019, and new rules are due to come into force in 2020, subject to approval by the European Parliament. These classify drones into several main categories based on performance and capability, allowing EASA to conduct specific operation risk assessment (SORA) for the different categories, and develop guidance material that helps drone operators comply with regulations.

What does this mean for airports?

Airports are taking short-term measures to mitigate drone intrusions, from grounding aircraft when drones are detected to reducing speed of aircraft on approach in order to limit damage in the event of a collision. Drones therefore have significant impact on the punctuality and the overall capacity of the airport. In the long term, dealing with drones requires airports to look at systems that will help them to detect, survey, identify drones or enforce trajectories as well as enable the geo-fencing of the airspace around the airport.

SESAR research is delivering solutions which address these challenges. For instance, partners in the CLear Air Situation for uaS (CLASS) project are looking at a combination of technologies to merge data coming from both cooperative and non-cooperative surveillance sources to enable conflict detection and resolution, and protection of restricted areas like airports. The CLASS project tested drone detection and tracking technologies during live demonstrations, which took place at the Deenethorpe Airfield (UK) in late 2018. The project performed 40 flights and six scenarios in total, which showed how the CLASS system can track and display in real time both cooperative and non-cooperative drones. The resulting system will provide the basis with which to develop U-space services tailored to end-users, including airports. Advanced services include tactical geo-fencing (where the drone pilot is warned automatically if he trespasses into an unauthorised zone), geo-caging (where the drone pilot is warned that he is leaving a pre-defined zone), conflict detection and resolution.

Another project is the PODIUM demonstration, which is performing 18 operational scenarios, for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and VLOS flights, across five sites including Groningen Airport Eelde, Hans Christian Andersen Airport Odense, Rodez-Aveyron Airport and the Drones Paris Region cluster in the vicinity of the Orly CTR. Drone operators and air traffic controllers are actively using U-space services for both the flight preparation and flight execution phases. Thanks to these live demonstrations, the PODIUM project is gaining valuable feedback, as well as recommendations for future improvements.

Seamless integration

At the same time, drones could represent new revenue streams for airports, especially drones transporting freight. Recognising this potential, the SESAR VUTURA demonstration in the Netherlands is trialling the delivery of packages to and from Twente Airport, while partners in the EuroDrone demonstration will show the feasibility of small express parcel delivery between an airport and the post office in a nearby city. The transport of passengers also holds potential, which partners in the Gulf of Finland demonstration will put to the test with trials taking place later this year.

In addition to small drones, airports need to consider large certified remotely-piloted aerial systems (RPAS) and their integration with manned aircraft, especially in the approach segment around airports. SESAR is testing cargo RPAS vehicles inserted into the airspace alongside commercial traffic to assess how controllers manage the traffic mix and deal with particular RPAS requirements. This work is done closely with the European Defence Agency (EDA) to ensure RPAS can be accommodated in non-segregated airspace despite being equipped differently and often operating at lower speeds than manned aircraft. RPAS also need access to the airport surface where they are subject to the same rules, procedures and performance requirements as any other airport user. They must be able to interface with ground-based airport systems and demonstrate their ability to act and respond to air traffic control.

On the horizon

Looking to the future, the U-space framework will accommodate all types of aerial systems, from manned aircraft to RPAS and drones, within one transparent system. With the appropriate services, regulations and procedures, U-space will allow the airspace management environment to evolve together in a safe and secure way. Successful and timely roll-out will need sustained commitment of all stakeholders in the aviation and drone communities, especially airports.