���
ernment-industry aviation rulemaking committee
brought together in 2008 to study the issue.
Its recommendations would provide for limited
initial small UAS operations for aircraft certificated
under consensus airworthiness standards,
weighing less than 25kg, flying lower than 400ft
(120m) above the ground. An eventual rulemaking
would likely result in special federal aviation
regulation covering the operations.
The idea, according to Ted Wierzbanowski,
industry co-chair for the small UAS aviation
rulemaking committee, is to “take a small bite
of the elephant” so that limited operations
could begin in the near term. “Once safety data
on these limited operations could be compiled
more expanded operations could be allowed in
the future,” says Wierzbanowski, noting that
costs and schedules associated with small UAS
development, testing and training for both public
and civil applications would be substantially
decreased under the aviation rulemaking
committee’s recommendations.
Progress has been more measured for developing
regulations pertaining to larger unmanned
systems, a task which is highly dependent
on RTCA special committee 203, a
committee formed by the FAA in 2004 and
tasked with developing performance standards
for sense and avoid and command, control
and communications.
Based on stakeholder pressures, the committee
has been moving its schedules to the
left. In October, SC 203 changed its estimated
completion date for the materials from 2019
to 2013, largely by easing a previous constraint
that the sense and avoid systems operate
in all airspace, including busier terminal
areas (class B, C and D).
Under the new plan, specifications will be
written for UAVs that will nominally fly in
uncontrolled (class G) or other less-crowded
airspace (class E and A), operating out of private
airfields. Contingencies for cases where
the UAVs enter controlled airspace will also
be included.
Industry-spurred action in the US Congress
could accelerate schedules even more. The
Senate version of an FAA funding bill set to
be debated later this year includes a comprehensive
shopping list of items that provide a
sense of the schedules and testing that proponents
would like to see.
Included in pilot projects are two sites to
demonstrate integrated operations by 2012, research
into human factors, dynamic simulations
of “all classes” of UAS in the national airspace
system, an assessment of sense and avoid technologies
and other UAS-related challenges by
the National Academy of Sciences, and consolidating
all needed rulemakings for integrating all
manner of unmanned aircraft systems into the
national airspace system, including vehicle design
requirements and operational requirements,
by 30 April 2010. �
flightglobal.com/auvsi
Future longendurance
UAV
Ground station
SOURCE: European Defence Agency
AIRSPACE INTEGRATION
SAFETY NIALL O’KEEFFE LONDON
EUROPE SEEKS COLLISION AVOIDANCE SOLUTIONS
THE EUROPEAN Defence
Agency has allocated a budget
of €50 million ($70 million) to
a program aimed at demonstrating
a mid-air collision
avoidance system that could
allow unmanned aircraft to fly
in civil airspace. Work is also
continuing on the UK’s similarly
intentioned Astraea
project.
A group of 13 European
manufacturers and research
centres has been awarded
contracts to participate in the
EDA’s four-year MidCAS program,
which is being sponsored
by France, Germany,
Italy, Spain and Sweden.
The research effort will focus
on developing sense-andavoid
capabilities equivalent to
those of manned aircraft.
Additionally, a new regulatory
standard will be developed in
collaboration with Eurocontrol,
the European Aviation Safety
Agency and the European
Organization for Civil Aircraft
Equipment, as well as US
counterparts.
“We need to take into account
what kind of technical
system will get an acceptance
from the authorities,” says
Lennart Sindahl, head of the
aeronautics division at Saab,
which is co-ordinating the
team’s work under a contract it
values at SKr105 million
($13.4 million). Sindahl notes
that technical, legal and perceptual
issues complicate the
mixing of manned and unmanned
aircraft, creating a
“limiting factor” for the latter.
While Sweden is leading the
project, Germany is represented
by Diehl BGT Defence, DLR,
EADS Deutschland and ESG.
Italian participants include
Finmeccanica subsidiaries
Alenia Aeronautica and Galileo
Avionica, as well as CIRA,
Selex Communications and
Selex Sistemi Integrati. The
team is completed by France’s
Sagem Défense Sécurité and
Thales Systèmes Aéroportés
and Spain’s Indra Sistemas
“We’ll use some of the
knowledge we have learned
from the Neuron program,”
says Sindahl, referencing a
Dassault-led, six-nation combat
air vehicle program in
which Sweden has a 25%
stake. With Neuron, he recalls,
work was divided in large packages
based on partners’ competencies
and capabilities.
MidCAS will start with an
architecture design phase,
says Lindahl. At subsequent
stages there will be simulations,
test flights using
manned aircraft and, ultimately,
a live demonstration of an
unmanned aircraft that will be
equipped with a sense-andavoid
system.
Meanwhile, UK industry is
persevering with the
Autonomous Systems
Technology Related Airborne
Evaluation and Assessment
(Astraea) project, despite delays
to government funding.
“The government is still pursuing
business cases to establish
their support,” says
Nigel Mills, a technical director
at Qinetiq. “Some of the regional
development agencies
are presenting the cases to
their boards…and we’re obviously
awaiting the outcome of
that.”
Qinetiq is joined in the
Astraea effort by AOS, BAE
Systems, Cobham, EADS UK,
Rolls-Royce and Thales UK.
The first phase of the project
concluded in 2008 with a simulated
unmanned air vehicle
flight through non-segregated
UK airspace.
The second phase, now under
way, covers testing of
sense-and-avoid technologies
on a manned surrogate aircraft,
plus what Mills terms a
“virtual certification”.
The original Astraea schedule
envisaged a UAV flight
demonstration in non-segregated
airspace by 2012. “I
think it’s fair to say that the
progress is not as great as we
had expected if we had got the
full government support, so
that will require some timing
changes,” says Mills.
MIDCAS TARGETS TECHNOLOGIES THAT ALLOW UAVS TO FLY IN CIVIL AIRSPACE
Commercial airliner
Unmanned rotorcraft
Air traffic control centre
August 11 2009 | Flight Daily News | 15
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