The rapid evolution of the technology underlying unmanned aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, remotely piloted aircraft systems, and, more commonly, drones, among other terms of art, presents a formidable challenge to anyone attempting to encapsulate the entire domain in one book. The broad notion of unmanned or remotely piloted aircraft has been with us for over a century. Society has witnessed extraordinary developments in the field of unmanned aviation over the last 30 years or so. The categories or topics that now define or bound the current state of the art of this technology are too numerous to list here, but will be discussed in the body of this book.
The media and popular press adopted the catchall label “drone,” while experts and regulators generally prefer UAV, UAS, RPA, or RPAS instead of “drone,” because the term “drone” once had a very specific meaning. The early descriptions of these types of aircraft settled on “drone,” although the historical root of the term remains controversial (likened to a honeybee drone, or perhaps derived from a 1930s British target drone called a “Queen Bee”? No one really knows). In the earliest phases of development of unmanned aircraft, “drone” referred to target aircraft or remotely piloted offensive weapons deployed by both sides in both World Wars. Today’s unmanned aircraft are far more sophisticated, and in most cases more capable of non-military missions than the “true” drones of nine decades ago. This book will use drone, UAS, sUAS, UAV, UAS, and RPAS more or less interchangeably, as a matter of style and continuity, unless the specific term used calls for an explanation of why it is used in the context of the discussion.
Military organizations, primarily in the United States, led the way in developing drone technology from flying targets for aircraft weaponry and surface-based artillery to aerial sensor systems modified for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. That capability soon led to development of platforms capable of carrying and deploying highly effective offensive munitions (such as the General Atomics’ Predator and Reaper series used in the first Gulf War and thereafter in subsequent Middle East conflicts).
Alongside the military’s tactical and strategic adoption of unmanned aerial systems, and the emerging market for civilian or scientific versions of those systems, the consumer sector emerged, which quickly realized the potential for unmanned systems in both the recreational and commercial arenas. Small (weighing less than 55 lb, or 2.2k), fixed-wing and rotorcraft contrivances were soon adapted for aerial photography, agriculture, building and infrastructure inspection, package delivery, entertainment, and any number of other applications having nothing to do with military operations. The sudden “Cambrian Explosion” of affordable and highly capable (consumer based) small UAS soon overwhelmed civil aviation authorities around the world with demands for access to low level airspace for a multitude of civilian uses.
The growth of this technology has outpaced the ability of governing authorities at all levels, international, national, regional and local, to keep up with the changes and promulgate rules, regulations, and standards for the operation of these systems in the public domain, namely the airspace above the surface. As a consequence, rogue operators and abusers of the technology have created havoc with their misuse of consumer drones to invade privacy, disrupt wildlife, interfere with firefighting and law enforcement activities, endanger manned aircraft operations around airports, and any number of irresponsible uses of affordable and readily available off-the-shelf drones. The need for safe and predictable environments for legitimate users of this technology is paramount, and airspace integration strategies are likely to offer the most achievable solutions.
This book will only briefly address the history of this technology, as many other publications have covered the same ground, but will provide a framework for understanding and evaluating just one critical element of this extremely complex environment: how to integrate these systems, large and small, fast and slow, heavy and light, all without pilots on board, with other occupants of the airspace, namely manned aviation, and how to do it safely, equitably, and efficiently to minimize the risk of disaster and maximize the economic opportunities sought by the users of the airspace. The full solution to the safe integration challenge, which has eluded the experts, developers, and regulators thus far, is the key to the further advancement of the technology beyond its current status. The ongoing global efforts characterize the potential solutions to this challenge as Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management (UTM), or Unmanned Aircraft Systems Space (U-Space), or Advanced/Urban Air Mobility (AAM/UAM), depending upon in which part of the world the effort originates.
Organization of the Book
The following chapters will introduce the reader to the major issues confronting the developers of these strategies and provide a brief introduction to what each nation or group of nations is doing to address those issues. The templates adopted by the major contributors as they work their way through the often conflicting and sometimes overlapping regulatory environments in which they must operate to be successful are discussed in greater detail. There are many parallel efforts to identify a path to full integration of unmanned systems with manned aviation, and they do not all agree on the strategy or the architecture to make it so. For this reason, this book is unashamedly broad in scope in some respects and rather narrow in others. The goal is to identify a common way forward for the evolving UAS industry and the regulatory authorities that must enable and monitor its growth to ensure public safety and economic viability.
Chapter 1 “Background” introduces a thumbnail history of aviation regulations, derived in some respects from the ancient Law of the Sea. This chapter briefly summarizes the first attempts to regulate airplanes and their pilots in the UK, the creation of an international regulatory body (ICAO) in 1944 as a product of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, and then moves on to the present-day regulatory system, both national and international, that oversees all aspects of commercial and private aviation.
Chapter 2 “UAS Airspace Integration in the European Union” is a longer chapter, and attempts to cover historical and ongoing regulatory efforts in the European Union regarding unmanned aircraft operations and standards. The EU has been very busy adopting regulations for UAS that will apply across all of its Member States, and more recently embarked upon the concept of a “U-space” that is intended to integrate UAS/RPAS into the European airspace by establishing a new concept for how the airspace can be managed while not disrupting existing commercial and general aviation activities.
Chapter 3 “ICAO” covers the International Civil Aviation Organization and its airspace integration activities with specific focus on remotely piloted aircraft systems.
Chapter 4 “UAS Airspace Integration in the United States” discusses airspace integration efforts in the United States, in coordination with Europe’s EASA and other national aviation authorities.
Chapter 5 “Global Airspace Integration Activities” takes a look at UAS integration efforts in a few selected countries that are considered to be representative of similar efforts in a growing number of ICAO’s 193 Member States.
Chapter 6 “The Role of Standards” examines the role of Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) in the development of regulations and best practices.
Chapter 7 “The Technology” discusses the various domains of the evolving UAS and UTM/U-space technology, and includes suggestions for a methodologies for conducting a risk assessment and functional decomposition of complex systems. Chapter 8 “Cybersecurity