A view on the situation of the unmanned aircrafts will be given in this working paper. A new era is rising in the aviation world, showing new and unexpected scenarios regarding the implementation of this new technology and its operational deployment. Some updates will be shown on possible ATM issues.

Industries are becoming everyday more interested in this concept and a massive introduction has to be expected by ATM operators.

1.1.  Improvements in technology and communication in the past decade has allowed extensive development in the area of unmanned aircraft, capable of operating with a remote pilot based on the ground, or even no pilot at all. These aircraft vary in size, weight, and are used for both military and civilian purposes. The economic benefits of these aircraft are causing significant development and demands for the widespread introduction of them into the aviation environment, including operations amongst civilian aircraft in non-segregated airspace (most of the UASs nowadays operate only in temporarily or permanently closed airspace for their operations (segregated areas)).

1.2.  A variety of terminology exists in the industry and can cause some confusion:

• UAS defines Unmanned Aircraft System, and is a generic term to describe all aircraft flown without a pilot on board, this was formerly termed Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV).
• RPAS is a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System, whereby a pilot located on the ground operates a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) also known as a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV).
• There are also aircraft capable of flying entirely without a pilot, either on board or on the ground. There aircraft are mostly known as Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Systems (AUAS).
• The mass media refer to all of these simply as “drones”.

1.3.  The ICAO regulatory framework does not yet recognize autonomous aircraft and focuses on RPAs only.

1.4.  For simplicity, throughout this paper the term UAS will be used to refer to all kinds of unmanned aircraft unless specified otherwise.

2.1. UAS types and categories

2.1.1  UASs are actually divided into 5 types: Micro, Mini, Small, Tactical and Strategic. This classification is only for military purposes and is based on the differences in weight and kind of mission” of the UAS (nowadays 99% of the UASs is for military purposes. Only in few cases of civil purposes – some low weight UASs are used (“micro” <2 Kg. or “mini” <30 Kg.) which fly at low altitude). It doesn’t adhere at all with the wake turbulence category which could interest ATM.

2.1.2  NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has developed a different classification that takes into account only of the take-off weight as in the following chart:

2.2. Operational case

2.2.1. One of the most active UAS is the Global Hawk. This “large” or “strategic” UAS has performances and dimensions that are similar to an actual aircraft and so the necessity to eventually integrate it into national airspaces requires compliance of certain rules.

2.2.2  Global Hawk isn’t equipped by some means (e.g. RVSM capacity and 8.33KHz radio) which are usually required for aircraft that are intended to fly within the same portion of airspace where this UAS flies (up to 60.000 ft.). As a result, the coordination between ATS provider and the regulator has led to the establishment of specific segregated airspaces, to allow the UAS to fly to the operational area.

2.2.3  A good example of operational issue is about the Global Hawks operating from Sigonella military airport (Italy – LICZ). These UASs are not permitted to fly where other standard traffic is (non- segregated airspace). At every opportunity a Global Hawk needs to take off or land in Sigonella, the adjacent civil airport of Catania Fontanarossa (LICC) is closed to all airborne operations causing the issue of delays to all other traffic.

2.3. ATM issues

2.3.1.  To allow UASs to fly in non-segregated airspaces, it should be mandatory for these systems to carry the standard equipment required to operate in such airspaces and to comply with the minimum required navigation and communication performances. If should this be the way, there will be the need to close the technological gap between UASs and other aircraft (ACAS 2, Data Link, Mode S, etc.) and to speed up the chase in an ATM world which is fast moving from the “First to come, first to be served” concept to a “Best equipped, best served” or even “Best performing, best served” concept.

2.3.2.  Just to give an example, a comparison between some of the features of the Global Hawk (RQ- 4B) and the last version of the Boeing 737 is given in the following chart:

As it can be figure out from the chart, some of the features of the Global Hawk are homogeneous with other commercial aircraft with which it could interact. This makes large or HALE (High Altitude Long Endurance) UASs a real challenge for ATM.

2.3.3  Another interesting example about performance improvement in all UASs category is that mini systems, despite their limited weight and size (<30Kg.), are capable to fly up to 10,000ft. of altitude and 15 NM of range. Mini systems should be operated in Line Of Sight (LOS) operations but according to their performance, nothing could limit their way to go Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS). The framework boundary between model aircrafts and UASs is getting thin.

2.3.4  UAS operation in non-segregated airspaces could mitigate any interaction issue by flying in segregated airspace until reaching an altitude which is above the normal ones (like >FL 550). In recent years considerable interest and effort has been expended world-wide into the development of technologies, ATM procedures, UAS operational approvals and UAS certification standards that will allow UAS to become fully integrated into the Air Traffic Management (ATM) environment.

2.4. IFATCA policy

2.4.1.  IFATCA policy related to unmanned aircraft is:

2.4.2.  TOC’s opinion is that this policy is valid and solid to state the need for every aircraft to be fully ICAO compliant, even it is “manned” or not. According to this first statement, the policy stresses the concept that ATCOs shall not provide services to UASs differently from other aircrafts. Otherwise this could lead to mixed mode operations.

2.4.3.  Whenever it is decided to allow the coexistence of non-ICAO compliant UASs in non-segregated airspace there should be the need for “ad-hoc” rules (that need to be less restrictive) or even as it used to do nowadays for military traffic.

2.5.5  The “Detect and Avoid” procedure must be as safe and reliable as the eyeball view used for the “See and Avoid” procedure. But since the issue of detect/sense is linked to independence and redundancy of the devices it might be that the separation layer and the anti-collision layer will fail both due to the very same reason (e.g. failure of the equipment used for both of them). The FAA has told lately (quite openly) that some of the Annex 2 requirements can possibly never be fully met by UAS. Technically speaking the limitations are big.

2.5.6  ICAO Aviation System Block Upgrades (ASBU). Blocks B1-90, B2-90 and B3-90 are the steps which has been created in the attempt to bring UASs into operational non-segregated airspace.

2.5.7  ICAO recognize that any delay in developing provisions could lead to the implementation of a variety of interim, non-harmonized national provisions, with subsequent compliance issues. In this case the costs for industry could be much higher than necessary.

2.5.8  The ICAO UAS-Study Group (UAS SG) is active on the development of a Manual, to be ready for the 2014 world-wide Symposium. It could be a starting point for new amendments to other Annexes to the Chicago Convention.

2.5.9  During the meeting between Airborne Surveillance Task Force (ASTAF) and the UAS-Study Group of ICAO held in Montreal in April 2012 the different options and issues/problems for the safe integration of UASs were pin-pointed and discussed.

2.5.9.1  It became evident that See and Avoid cannot fully work for non-manned aircraft, even with very sophisticated electronic devices since it can’t actually achieve the same degree of flexibility and the same level of safety of an on-board pilot eye view. Worse even for the very complex priority rules for avoiding traffic visually as stated on Annex 2 §3.2.2 “Right-of-way” rules (avoiding traffic visually with no risk of collision).

2.5.9.2  So the only way forward in certifying UAS to permit their integration into non-segregated airspace is by using “the equivalent level of safety” arguments. Which means to “find” procedures or technologies that would achieve the same level of safety that we have right now.

2.6.4  Aviation industries are developing the evolution of the “Detect and Avoid” concept, called “Sense and Avoid”, in which several sensors and apparatus sends their readings to a central system that decides the most appropriate avoiding action.

2.6.5  Industry has already developed UASs which are capable of operating autonomously in some phases of the flight (by the time for take-off, landing and obstacle avoidance) and will continue on switching even more and more aspect of the UAS flight to autonomy.

2.6.6  EDA (European Defence Agency) is the contracting authority for MIDCAS (MID air Collision Avoidance System).

This project is developing an avoidance system for both military and civil purposes according to the following policy:

“The MIDCAS mission is to demonstrate the baseline of solutions for the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Midair Collision Avoidance Function (including separation), acceptable by the manned aviation community and being compatible with UAS operations in non-segregated airspace by 2015”.

2.7 Integration issues

2.7.1  Any legal aspect related to UAS brings new issues. In article 8 of the 1944 Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation is mentioned that:

“No aircraft capable of being flown without a pilot shall be flown without a pilot over the territory of a contracting State without special authorization by that State and in accordance with the terms of such authorization…”

2.7.2  While the Global Air Traffic Management Operational Concept (Doc 9854), confirms Article 8 and states:

“An unmanned aerial vehicle is a pilotless aircraft, in the sense of Article 8 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, which is flown without a pilot-in-command on-board and is either remotely and fully controlled from another place (ground, another aircraft, space) or programmed and fully autonomous.”

2.7.3  Nowadays an aircraft can be considered as a “closed system”: flight controls are directly linked to the pilot who is inside the airplane and therefore anyone who has the intent to hijack the plane should be inside the aircraft itself. An UAS is an “open system” instead. Anyone who has the capability to intercept the communication between the remote pilot and the aircraft could take control of it as demonstrated by Professor Todd Humphreys and his team at Austin’s Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas.

2.7.4  One of industries’ objective will be to make UASs control transmissions as secure as possible. ICAO UASSG is addressing this issue.

2.7.5  Every time the link between the UAS and the remote pilot is lost, most modern systems have a “Lost-Link Procedure”. It includes a determined behaviour taken by the UAS in terms of specific path to get back to the departure airfield or to another specified one. While some States have a published procedure for such an event, serious issue could arise if such procedure is not known by the ATCOs since it could bring the UAS into unexpected flight path and/or into unexpected airspaces.

2.7.6  In 2010 EUROCONTROL commissioned a study to demonstrate that there is a need for UAS to have a collision avoidance capability comparable to that delivered by ACAS on manned aircraft (see further reading). On July the 1st 2010 the first European High Level Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems was held in Brussels. Since this meeting it became evident that UAS technology is being promoted for economic reasons.

The very first point of the 15 final steps the participants decided to initiate was:

“a) Unmanned Aircraft Systems must be able to operate without segregation from other airspace users to allow the development of their full potential…”

Despite many other political, economic, industrial and ethical issues, the UAS insertion into ATM airspace is being considered the first and most important topic to allow further industrial and civil development.

2.7.7  Since UAS world is evolving, it becomes necessary to rule its activities. On April 11th 2012 SESAR JU started a study on possible UAS integration in non-segregated airspace. This program is called ICONUS (Initial CON OPS for UAS in SESAR). It will be kept by a 6 Associate Partners team of several European states with the aim of defining the minimum performance requirements and to study the way to implement new separation methods.

2.7.8  EUROCAE within the European UAS expert group, WG-73 is working with EASA in the development of airworthiness criteria and Special Conditions to supplement EASA A-NPA-16 Policy for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Certification. The result of these studies led to the same issues seen before on the necessity to get a high level of security on Command and Control transmission.

2.7.9  European Defense Agency (EDA) has created the SIGAT project – Study on the Insertion of UAS in the General Air Traffic, a consortium of EADS, Sagem, BAE and Dassault. This agency has proven UASs advantages for many applications and considers the ability for UAS to share civil airspace with other aircraft in General Air Traffic (GAT) a major milestone. It is anyway concerned on Command & Control (C2) radio-frequency data-link and the use of a Sense & Avoid (SAA) system for anti-collision purposes which still miss a specific spectrum allocation.

3.1.  UAS integration in ATM airspaces need a step-by-step path.

3.2.  TOC’s opinion is that every aircraft, manned or not, operating in non-segregated airspaces, shall be compliant with ICAO requirements.

3.3.  Industry is pushing to bring UASs into the same airspace used by manned flights but using different capabilities.

3.4.  UAS operations in non-segregated airspace have already started.

3.5.  Any new concept must first of all take into consideration all the safety aspects. The responsibility and liability framework between humans and machines must be clearly defined.

It is recommended that:

This paper is accepted as information material.

IFATCA Professional and Operational Manual 2012 – AAS 1.10 OPERATIONAL USE OF UNMANNED AIRCRAFT (UA) and ATS 3.14 MIXED MODE OPERATIONS.

ICAO Circular 328 AN/190 Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).

ALIAS – Using Scenarios to discuss liability issues of UAS.

043-44_Contributing-Stakeholder_ICAO-UAS-Study-Group.

EASA Policy Statement Doc # E.Y01301 Airworthiness certification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).

46th Single Sky Committee – European Strategy in support of the UAS sector 14/15 June 2012 (Submitted by the European Commission).

Amendment 43 to ICAO Annex 2.

https://www.sesarju.eu/news-press/news/sesar-launches-study-unmanned-aircraft-1070.

Conclusions of the first European High Level Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems – Brussels, 1st July 2010.

Flieger Law Office bvba newsletter Sept. 2012: “Unmanned aerial systems: towards an European legislation or global regulatory system?” By Arthur Flieger, Attorney at law Flieger Law Office bvba with the cooperation of Stijn Brusseleers, Attorney at law Flieger Law Office bvba.

https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Unmanned_Aircraft_Systems.

Eurocontrol – ATM Guidelines for Global Hawk in European Airspace.

EASA News 11 (July 2012).

ICAO DOC 4444 ATM/501 Procedures for Air Navigation Services.

ICAO AN-Conf/12-WP/14 Aviation System Block Upgrade modules relating to integration of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) into non-segregated airspace.

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics: “For Spacious Skies: Self-Separation with “Autonomous Flight Rules” in US Domestic Airspace” by David J. Wing (NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, 23681) and William B. Cotton (National Institute of Aerospace, Hampton, VA, 23666).

Centro Alti Studi della Difesa – Remotely Piloted Systems: Aspetti etici del loro impiego – Rome, May the 2nd 2012.

USAF RPA Update – Looking to the Future by Col J.R. Gear Director, USAF RPA Task Force, 3 Jun 2011.

IFALPA Position – The Global Voice of Pilots 13POS04 (12 October 2012).

www.midcas.org.

Drones vulnerable to terrorist hijacking, researchers say by John Roberts June 25, 2012 – www.foxnews.com.

European Defence Agency – SIGAT – Study On Military Spectrum Requirements for the Insertion of UAS Into General Air Traffic.

2012 RPAS Yearbook – The Global Perspective – 10th Edition, June 2012.

John Croft: “Advisers Caution FAA on Unmanned Vehicle Integration” – Aviation Week, October 16, 2012.

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics : Safety Considerations for Operation of Different Classes of UAVs in the NAS by Roland E. Weibel and R. John Hansman, Jr. – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.

European Commission: SSC/12/46/18 Agenda Item 11.1, 31 May 2012.

United States Government Accountability Office: Highlights of GAO-12-981, a report to congressional requesters: Unmanned Aircraft Systems – Measuring Progress and Addressing Potential Privacy Concerns Would Facilitate Integration into the National Airspace System (September 2012).

This appendix is intended to provide readers with all the information collected by TOC for the UAS working paper that didn’t gain sufficient room in the WP itself. The following information are to be considered as an integration to the main working paper which expresses already all the major issues and IFATCA’s opinions on UAS.

6.1 An operational case

6.1.1  Nowadays one of the most active UAS in the Italian airspace is the Northrop “Global Hawk”. This “large” or “strategic” UAS (depending on the definition) starts its activity taking off from Sigonella airport (LICZ) located on Sicily island, south of Italy. The performances and the dimensions of this machine are similar to the ones of an actual aircraft and so the necessity to eventually integrate it into national airspaces requires compliance of certain rules.

The Global Hawks based in Sigonella have already reached more than 1,000 hours of flight and almost the same activity is being carried with Predator B UASs on Foggia Amendola airport (LIBA – Apulia, south Italy) where is located the Remotely Piloted Aircraft Reference Centre (Centro di Eccellenza per Aeromobili a Pilotaggio Remoto – CdE APR). The Italian Air Force has already operated drones for more than 10,000 hours in both national and international environment. Industries in Italy as well as in the rest of the industrialized world are getting more and more involved in this technology.

6.1.2  Global Hawk isn’t equipped by some means (e.g. RVSM capacity and 8.33KHz radio) which are usually required for aircraft that are intended to fly within the same portion of airspace where this UAS flies (up to 60.000 ft.). As a result, the coordination between ATC provider ENAV and the regulator ENAC has led to the establishment of specific segregated corridor airspace, to allow the UAS to fly to the operational area.

6.1.3  Up to date, any request of the remote pilot to be rerouted on a direct track that brings the UAS outside of the segregated area is denied by the ATC unit. In addition to this, since the UAS is not permitted to fly where other standard traffic is, at every opportunity a Global Hawk needs to take off or land in Sigonella airport, the adjacent Catania Fontanarossa airport is closed to all airborne operations causing the issue of delays to all other traffic.

6.1.4  In recent years considerable interest and effort has been expended world-wide into the development of technologies, ATM procedures, UAS operational approvals and UAS certification standards that will allow UAS to become fully integrated into the Air Traffic Management (ATM) environment.

In 2010 EUROCONTROL have commissioned a study to demonstrate that there is a need for UAS to have a collision avoidance capability comparable to that delivered by ACAS on manned aircraft (see further reading).

6.2 The future of European research

6.2.1 On July the 1st 2010 the first European High Level Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems was held in Brussels. One of the key elements which came out was:

“…The participants in the Conference agreed that the emergence of Unmanned Aircraft Systems sector is a promising new chapter for the aerospace domain and for the aviation industry. Europe has a robust industrial and technology baseline for UAS to assume a leading competitive position in this new growth sector. Capitalising on this growth potential could create thousands of high technology jobs for Europe. We need to be proactive in order to enhance the competitive position of European industries, SMEs, research and service providers.

Once the existing barriers to growth are removed, the civil market could be potentially much larger than the military market. Exponential growth could be expected once user applications are developed and a legal framework is set up.”

And the very first point of the 15 final steps the participants decided to initiate was:

“a) Unmanned Aircraft Systems must be able to operate without segregation from other airspace users to allow the development of their full potential…”

Despite many other political, economic, industrial and ethical issues, the UAS insertion into ATM airspace is being considered the first and most important topic to allow further industrial and civil development.

6.2.2  Since UAS world is evolving, it becomes necessary to rule its activities. On April 11th 2012 SESAR JU started a study on possible UAS integration in non-segregated airspace. This program is called ICONUS (Initial CON OPS for UAS in SESAR). It will be kept by a 6 Associate Partners team of several European states and will be leaded by the French organization ONERA together with AVTECH (Sweden); CIRA and Deep Blue (Italy); ENAC (France) and INTA (Spain).

The aim of ICONUS is to define the minimum performance requirements and to study the way to implement new separation methods. This study shall show how UASs will be affected by the future ATM changes that is moving from airspace-based operations (in which the users are completely subject to the airspace constrains) to trajectory-based operations (where all the ATM will operate among all of its component to guarantee to the aircraft the best available trajectory according to its preferred route).

6.2.3  To deal with UAS, ICAO established in November 2007 a UAS Study Group. The European contribution to this Group so far, has been provided by EASA and Eurocontrol. The 37th General Assembly (October 2010) recommended ICAO to include the development of standards for UAS in its work programme.

Amendment 13 to Annex 13 (Accident Investigations) officially recognises that UAS are within the regulatory competence of aviation authorities while ICAO Circular 328 published in March 2010, covers legal matters, OPS, FCL, airworthiness and systems. ICAO also plans to develop an UAS Manual that should be finalized in 2013.

EASA will contribute with regard to safety objectives, oversight of communication service providers and flight crew licensing.

6.2.4  Germany undertook a safety case for Euro Hawk flying in ATM airspace above FL 100 and considered it to be safe. Global Hawk and Euro Hawk operations on a low scale in Germany and Italy are expected to be performed as stated on the “ATM Guidelines for Global Hawk in European Airspace” by Eurocontrol:

“The GH operations described are flown by the military, and are therefore classed as Operational Air Traffic (OAT). These Guidelines accordingly follow the same basic ATM principles as the EUROCONTROL Specifications for the Use of Military UAS as OAT, namely that:

• UA operations should not increase the risk to other airspace users;
• ATM procedures should mirror as much as possible those applicable to manned aircraft;
• The provision of air traffic services to UAS should be transparent to ATC controllers.”

6.3 ICAO

6.3.1 ICAO published the Amendment 43 of the Annex 2 “Rules of the Air”. Among the topics addressed by this document, there is the level requirements related to remotely piloted aircraft systems.

In this edition several new definitions (including “detect and avoid”) and operating rules related to the UASs are given as follows:

New Annex 2 Definitions:

Command and control link (C2). The data link between the remotely piloted aircraft and the remote pilot station for the purposes of managing the flight.

Detect and avoid. The capability to see, sense or detect conflicting traffic or other hazards and take the appropriate action.

Operator. A person, organization or enterprise engaged in or offering to engage in an aircraft operation.

Note. In the context of remotely piloted aircraft, an aircraft operation includes the remotely piloted aircraft system.

Remote pilot. A person charged by the operator with duties essential to the operation of a remotely piloted aircraft and who manipulates the flight controls, as appropriate, during flight time.

Remote pilot station. The component of the remotely piloted aircraft system containing the equipment used to pilot the remotely piloted aircraft.

Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). An unmanned aircraft which is piloted from a remote pilot station.

Remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS). A remotely piloted aircraft, its associated remote pilot station(s), the required command and control links and any other components as specified in the type design.

RPA observer. A trained and competent person designated by the operator who, by visual observation of the remotely piloted aircraft, assists the remote pilot in the safe conduct of the flight.

Visual line-of-sight (VLOS) operation. An operation in which the remote pilot or RPA observer maintains direct unaided visual contact with the remotely piloted aircraft.
…

APPENDIX 4. REMOTELY PILOTED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS

…

1. General operating rules

1.1 A remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) engaged in international air navigation shall not be
operated without appropriate authorization from the State from which the take-off of the remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) is made.

1.2 An RPA shall not be operated across the territory of another State, without special authorization issued by each State in which the flight is to operate. This authorization may be in the form of agreements between the States involved.

1.3 An RPA shall not be operated over the high seas without prior coordination with the appropriate ATS authority.

1.4 The authorization and coordination referred to in 1.2 and 1.3 shall be obtained prior to take-off if there is reasonable expectation, when planning the operation, that the aircraft may enter the airspace concerned.

1.5 An RPAS shall be operated in accordance with conditions specified by the State of Registry, the State of the Operator if different and the State(s) in which the flight is to operate.

1.6 Flight plans shall be submitted in accordance with Chapter 3 of this Annex or as otherwise mandated by the State(s) in which the flight is to operate.

1.7 RPAS shall meet the performance and equipment carriage requirements for the specific airspace in which the flight is to operate.

3.3 When certificates or other documents identified in 3.2 above are issued in a language other than English, an English translation shall be included.

3.4 After authorization has been obtained from the appropriate State(s), air traffic services notification and coordination shall be completed in accordance with the requirements of the State(s).

Note.-A request for authorization does not satisfy the requirement to file a flight plan with the air traffic services units.

3.5 Changes to the authorization shall be submitted for consideration to the appropriate State(s). If the changes are approved, all affected authorities shall be notified by the operator.

3.6 In the event of a flight cancellation the operator or remote pilot shall notify all appropriate authorities as soon as possible.

6.3.2  It is now up to the States to decide whether to transpose this rules or not in their own “ad-hoc” rules (any difference from ICAO Standard or Recomended Practice shall be addressed from the member state as stated on article 38 of Chicago Convention).

6.3.3  ICAO Aviation System Block Upgrade (ASBU) is a framework of block modules which is intended to enhance step by step, several aspects of the ATM world. Blocks B1-90, B2-90 and B3-90 are the steps which has been created to bring UASs into operational non-segregated airspace.

6.3.4  ICAO statement about financial implication on the ASBU-RPAS working paper for the twelfth Air Navigation Conference is:

“although cost to State associated with implementing new RPAS regulations based on ICAO provisions should be comparable to the cost for any other regulation, any delay in developing such provisions could lead to the implementation of a variety of interim, non-harmonized national provisions, with subsequent compliance issues. In this case the costs for industry could be much higher than necessary”.

As it can be seen, ICAO is affected by industry issue. Cost index, cost effectiveness and business based aspects are becoming even more relevant in the ICAO policies.

6.3.5  Among other issues, ASBU considers also the possibility of implementing airports that would support RPA operations only. It makes also some considerations about the expected mixed mode operations.

According to the working paper, ASBU should include:

“…adjustments to operational procedures for manned aircraft, ATC procedures and phraseology and aerodrome markings in order to safely and efficiently accommodate mixed operations.”

As we can figure out, ICAO’s think tanks are about mixed mode operations most probably won’t be dodged.

6.3.6  Amendment 43 to Annex 2 states that a legal person shall file an application each time an UAS wants to fly in non-segregated airspace. This legal person has to be a certified RPAS operator with licensed remote pilots and using certified RPAS.

The Amendment establishes that only the Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA: the flying part of the system), according to Article 31 of the Chicago Convention, needs an individual Certificate of Airworthiness and a registration. This leads to an important issue as it could bring to the opinion that ‘station’ will be a new ‘product’ shifting some responsibility from the State of Registry towards the State of Operator.

The amendment to ICAO Annex 2 may require an amendment to said Regulation, which currently considers the RPS a ‘part’ and not a ‘product’.

6.3.7  The UAS Study Group (UAS SG) is supporting ICAO on the development of a Manual, to be ready for the world-wide Symposium that is expected to be held in April 2014 which could be a starting point for new amendments to other Annexes to the Chicago Convention.

6.3.8  The remote pilots will use meteorological information, aeronautical charts and information as them can be found in ICAO Annexes 3, 4 and 15. The Unmanned Systems will use the same technologies as manned aircraft for communications with ATC (from the Air Traffic Services perspective) so that Unmanned Aircraft Systems are to be considered as one more airspace user which applies the same rules as any other. The Unmanned Aircraft Systems are moving from military operations to civil aviation. Some safety regulators have already published initial sets of rules or at least guidance material. As said above in 2013 an updated UAS Manual shall be published by ICAO while and a set of EASA rules should be issued in 2016.

The aviation regulations will slightly change in the future and probably in a rather quick pace.

6.3.9  During ICAO UASSG (UAS Study Group) and ASTAF meetings it resulted evident that See and Avoid cannot fully work for non-manned aircraft – even with very sophisticated cameras, and it will never achieve the same degree of flexibility and the same level of safety. Worse even for the very complex priority rules for avoiding traffic visually, the so-called “Right-of-way” rules (avoiding traffic visually with no risk of collision):

Annex 2 §3.2.2 “Right-of-way”

The aircraft that has the right-of-way shall maintain its heading and speed.

3.2.2.1 An aircraft that is obliged by the following rules to keep out of the way of another shall avoid passing over, under or in front of the other, unless it passes well clear and takes into account the effect of aircraft wake turbulence.

3.2.2.2 Approaching head-on. When two aircraft are approaching head-on or approximately so and there is danger of collision, each shall alter its heading to the right.

3.2.2.3 Converging. When two aircraft are converging at approximately the same level, the aircraft that has the other on its right shall give way, except as follows:

a) power-driven heavier-than-air aircraft shall give way to airships, gliders and balloons;

b) airships shall give way to gliders and balloons;

c) gliders shall give way to balloons;

d) power-driven aircraft shall give way to aircraft which are seen to be towing other aircraft or objects.

3.2.2.4 Overtaking. An overtaking aircraft is an aircraft that approaches another from the rear on a line forming an angle of less than 70 degrees with the plane of symmetry of the latter, i.e. is in such a position with reference to the other aircraft that at night it should be unable to see either of the aircraft’s left (port) or right (starboard) navigation lights. An aircraft that is being overtaken has the right-of-way and the overtaking aircraft, whether climbing, descending or in horizontal flight, shall keep out of the way of the other aircraft by altering its heading to the right, and no subsequent change in the relative positions of the two aircraft shall absolve the overtaking aircraft from this obligation until it is entirely past and clear.

6.4 Upcoming aspects

6.4.1  On May 2nd 2012 the Centro Alti Studi della Difesa (CASD – High level Defence Study Centre) of Rome (Italy) hosted a conference regarding the ethical aspects on the use of Remotely Piloted Systems. The debate touched less on the ethical and more on operational, technical and industrial aspects. Since the very beginning of this conference the CASD Chairman, Gen. Panato and the Chief of Staff of Air Force Gen. Bernardis highlighted that, despite mass media show UASs as a cynical mean of destruction at distance, there is no differences with intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads or even as the simplest battle fought with bows and arrows that centuries ago opened an extensive debate on gallant rules in war (as a matter of fact, remote pilot can hit targets while being protected by familiar environment, relaxing after any working shift but getting the risk that the awareness on the events could go down to undesireable level).

6.4.2  More interesting in the debate were medical/psychological aspects of piloting in a remotely manner that take in count the risk that situational awareness may be less than piloting an aircraft being on-board of it. The challenge can become greater if we consider that by 2012 USAF will start operations where one remote pilot will manage 4 UASs at once. It is expected that these clues will affect civil UASs as well.

Other interesting issues are the technological aspects that highlights how many industries, like Agusta-Westland and Alenia, are elaborating even more advanced UAS concepts with an upgrading autonomy level (meaning with this the capability to be autonomous in decision making from humans). There are ten levels or steps that lead this systems to the complete autonomy even if it is still far to be carried out since nowadays we can only talk about “automation”. The human is still the core of the system (“man in the loop”) (A 24 hours operation with a Predator requires 110 operators and this is one of the reasons why industries are pushing the system to go from automation to decisional autonomy).

6.4.3  How will all these researches affect ATM world? Here we find the definition of “detect and avoid” again. Alenia and other aviation makes are developing the evolution of such concept, called “sense and avoid” by the industry, in which several sensors and apparatus (IR, TV, ACAS etc.) sends their readings to a central system that decides the most appropriate avoiding action.

6.4.4 EDA (European Defence Agency) is the contracting authority for MIDCAS (MID air Collision Avoidance System). This project has a budget of €50 million and is carried out by several industries: Alenia, Saab, Thales, Selex and others. It is developing an avoidance system for both military and civil purposes according to the following policy:

“The MIDCAS mission is to demonstrate the baseline of solutions for the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Midair Collision Avoidance Function (including separation), acceptable by the manned aviation community and being compatible with UAS operations in non-segregated airspace by 2015”.

Since industry is worried about the increasing workload felt by remote pilots, it has already developed UASs which are capable of operating completely autonomous in some phases of the flight (by the time only take off, landing and obstacle avoidance). Industries will continue on switching to be autonomous even more and more aspect of the UAS flight (e.g. it is intended to be developed an “ethical code software” for military purposes) (programming code software which includes e.g. Geneva Convention rules, international rules of engagement, etc.).

6.4.5  Legal aspects analysis

6.4.6  In article 8 of the 1944 Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation is mentioned that:

“No aircraft capable of being flown without a pilot shall be flown without a pilot over the territory of a contracting State without special authorization by that State and in accordance with the terms of such authorization…”

While the Global Air Traffic Management Operational Concept (Doc 9854), confirms Article 8 and states: