UAS OPERATIONS: PRESENTATION SYNOPSES DEPENDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT? LONDON / SEPTEMBER

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1 Unmanned Aircraft System Conference UAS OPERATIONS: DEPENDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT? LONDON / 19-0 SEPTEMBER 01 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: SAFE, PRACTICAL, FLEXIBLE AND MEASURED INTRODUCTION OF UAS CIVIL OPERATIONS As always in the aviation industry, one stakeholder alone can not solve the problems, but together each industry stakeholder can each bring something to the table. In the UK, it s our collaboration that will ensure our success as aviation takes the next technology step along the UAS evolutionary path. Air traffic control is part of that evolution and NATS is a part of the UAS solution. SESSION 1: APPLICATION CROSSOVER AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER FOR MILITARY/CIVIL OPERATIONS (1) UK REAPER OPERATIONS - THE VANGUARD DAYS The presentation from Andy Jeffrey will initially offer delegates a brief background of the procurement of the RAF s Reaper programme. Following this, he will discuss the CONOPs of flying the Reaper, before touching on the challenges faced by being on constant operations in Afghanistan with the cockpit being located on the west coast of the USA. He will then go on to discuss the training and manning issues which were the main (and unique) challenge during the introduction of the RAF s first RPAS capability. Throughout the presentation, Andy will include his thoughts on how educating (training) the RAF Commanders was a key in employing the Reaper s unique capabilities. () TACTICAL UAS OPERATIONS - A RETURN TO UK FLYING The British Army has operated Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems (TUAS) since the mid 1990s and has amassed 70,000 hrs of operation in Iraq and Afghanistan since 007. Army TUAS operate from Bastion Airfield, the rd busiest UK airfield. The evolution of UK TUAS capability will require routine operation and training from Boscome Down from 01. This will require operation of TUAS in Class G airspace and will also require the incorporation of best practice from Afghanistan. This presentation will explain the competency of the UK Army to operate TUAS in such airspace and some of the measures which are being developed () UAS TRAINING: LEARNING FROM THE MILITARY The UK military has operated UAS since the late 1970s with direct operational experience obtained in conflicts ranging from the Gulf Wars, Kosovo, Afghanistan and most recently, Libya. Over this time, the operational, maintenance and flight safety procedures and in particular, training methodologies have evolved to become a mature flight operations system that is highly effective in delivering Air Support and ISTAR services as part of an integrated fighting force. Therefore, when looking at creating a new UAS training concept, the UK military UAS training system provided an excellent model to form part of the overall concept. In particular, the training philosophies employed by the RA for Micro and MALE platform crews and by the RAF for Sensor Operators provide a mature baseline from which to build a new training DSAT compatible concept. This presentation describes how Resource UAS has combined state of the art facilities with mature training philosophies derived from the UK military to create a training school compatible with both military and non-military clients. () EUROCAE AND ITS ROLES WITHIN THE EUROPEAN STANDARDISATION FRAMEWORK (INCLUDING WG 7/9) This presentation will give an introduction of EUROCAE and its role within the European standardisation & regulatory framework. It will also introduce the EUROCAE Working Groups dedicated to RPAS integration into the civil airspace: WG-7 UAS standardisation and WG-9 Light RPAS.

2 Unmanned Aircraft System Conference UAS OPERATIONS: DEPENDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT LONDON / 19-0 SEPTEMBER SESSION : CIVIL APPLICATIONS - DIVERSITY OR SIMILARITY? () UAS OPERATING IN OIL, GAS AND MINERAL EXPLORATION The presentation on UAS operating in Oil, Gas and Mineral Exploration discusses the issues to be addressed by any unmanned aircraft used in a geophysical survey and in an oil and gas pipeline monitoring service. Flight Operations invariably take place beyond line of sight in remote regions with no terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure. There is a requirement for Pipeline Monitoring work to take place at night in some parts of the world. A key requirement is to increase the operational survivability of the UA to realise the cost effectiveness of a service based on the use of unmanned aircraft. This UA survivability can be increased through the implementation of engine enhancements, adaptive flight control and additional intelligence on the UA. () BBC UAS OPERATIONS The BBC has recently concluded an experimental project to operate a UAS in support of several live events over the summer. This experiment has delivered a wealth of useful knowledge in terms of Technology, Operations, and Regulation. Ant will share some of the challenges faced by the BBC in this work, and also outline the aspirations for future UAS provisioned broadcast media services. (7) EARTH FLIGHT - UAS AN ENABLING TECHNOLOGY Aerials have been a powerful technique for wildlife film makers for capturing inspiring images of the natural world. But the costs of acquiring aerials are significant, especially when chartering full size aircraft in remote parts of the world. To help reduce costs smaller RC aircraft have been a partial solution, but there operational limitations to manually operated RC models. The recent development of multi- rotor UAVs is helping to push back the boundaries of filmmaking and is proving a valuable tool to filming in remote and environmentally sensitive locations. (8) POWERLINE INSPECTION Cyberhawk provides aerial inspection services using the latest Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Payloads include high definition video equipment, high- resolution still cameras and thermal imaging cameras. Cyberhawk s UAS inspections: Reduces costs; Saves on shutdown costs by allowing inspection while the asset is live; Improves safety; Removes the need for people to work at height; Saves time; In the air in seconds; No need for scaffolding, cranes or manned baskets; Live video feed to the ground. Our Inspection department has a team of experienced CSWIP qualified plant inspection engineers, offshore and onshore inspection engineers & chartered engineers who use UASs to carry out visual inspections of objects at height. The Cyberhawk UAS weighs less than kg and is less than a metre in length. It is multi-bladed which provides a stable hovering platform and is battery powered, avoiding the need for liquid fuel on site. Cyberhawk are Civil Aviation Authority approved UAS operators and all pilots are highly trained and qualified. SESSION : UAS BUSINESS (9) UAS AND THE LAW: PROTECTING AND EXPLOITING YOUR ASSETS UAS are high-tech, intellectual property rich systems which can involve complex supply chain and engineering challenges. Whilst military UAS operate in pre-determined airspace, in order to reach their full potential, civilian UAS must fly autonomously in open non-segregated airspace with other manned aircraft. All these factors create a potentially complex legal and regulatory environment. In this presentation Peter Lee, a solicitor who specialises in advising UAS companies, will explore some practical commercial contract and technology law issues (including intellectual property (IP), data protection and privacy matters) that UAS businesses face.

3 Unmanned Aircraft System Conference UAS OPERATIONS: DEPENDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT LONDON / 19-0 SEPTEMBER 01 (10) UAS INSURANCE: A BUSINESS NECESSITY Adam will address the typical risk issues that operators, trainers, manufacturers and resellers face when establishing and operating their businesses on both a domestic and international stage. He will examine the process of assessing the liability and physical risks a business faces and describe how he ensures the appropriate amount of insurance cover offered meets both the risk profile as well as budgetary restraints (11) ULTRA PROJECT To unlock the true potential of the UAS market, stakeholders need to break a series of entangled challenges. Today, in the absence of UAS regulations, the development of solutions is risky and expensive for industry, and essentially aimed at military applications. As a result, the UAS market is small and its impact on European industry is limited. Also, there is no improvement in UAS social acceptance, including a lack of political willingness to develop regulations. While this vicious circle is what is preventing the development of a civil UAS market alongside the existing military UAS market, it is also a great opportunity for Europe to take leadership and to secure an advantageous position in what is predicted by many UAS market studies to be a large and sustainable market with spin-offs into manned aviation, space and other high-tech markets. The overall objective of ULTRA is to develop a civil UAS Master Plan that will break this vicious circle in order to: 1. Unlock the true potential of the UAS market by addressing civil applications that are not systematically addressed today; and. Ensure that European industry plays a leading role at an international level in the development of UAS solutions. The civil UAS Master Plan will build upon all relevant prior work (including the recommendations of the EU UAS Panel), and will leverage existing regulations and infrastructures in order to enable deployment of specific civil UAS applications within the next years. The Master Plan will also highlight regulations and infrastructures that need to be developed in order to completely unlock the civil UAS market within the next 10-1 years, and will articulate the impact of a civil UAS market on European industry and quality of life. (1) DEVELOPING A PROFESSIONAL APPROACH TO COMMERCIAL UAS BUSINESS The UAS industry, like the manned aerospace world, lives on a knife-edge. Good news stories abound but rarely make the headlines; a crash with people injured or killed is front page news and the whole industry takes a hit. As a succinct industry we have to be as good as the manned world technologically, operationally and business-wise. AUVSI published a Code of Conduct for the industry based on Safety, Professionalism and Respect in July this year - an excellent start but perhaps we need to consider what would take it to the next level to avoid tags like fly-by-nights or shadow or shady organisations SESSION : UAS REGULATION AND STANDARDS (1) ICAO PROGRESS UPDATE This presentation will provide an update on the current situation within the ICAO UAS Study Group informing delegates about progress made to date. (1) EUROPEAN AVIATION SAFETY AGENCY (EASA) PRESPECTIVES Operations of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) are spreading pushed by state organisations wishing to use them under General Air Traffic (GAT) rules in non-segregated airspace and former users of aero-models, which take advantage of increasing performances and payloads and start to offer commercial services. Regulators of safety of civil aviation face then a challenge: on one side they cannot simply continue to restrict these operations in segregated

4 Unmanned Aircraft System Conference UAS OPERATIONS: DEPENDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT LONDON / 19-0 SEPTEMBER 01 airspace over unpopulated areas; on the other they should never compromise the safety of third parties on the ground and of other airspace users. But the knowledge of the community in this new field is still very limited, although some RPAS have remarkable performances. Regulators have hence to exchange, among themselves and with the community as much information as possible, to allow a gradual but safe evolution. Furthermore, most RPAS have a take-off mass much lighter than any previous flying machine, while a number of operators are natural persons. Rules need therefore to be not only safe, but also proportionate. (1) JARUS: A HARMONISED APPROACH TO UAS RULEMAKING According to Article. of EC Regulation 1/008 the certification and operational requirements for UAS with a MTOM below 10kg are the responsibility of the European National Aviation Authorities (NAA). The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is responsible for UAS with a MTOM larger than 10kg. In theory, this could lead to the development of differing requirements for Light UAS by each individual NAA. In an attempt to avoid this differentiation CAA-NL initiated an international coordination group called JARUS (Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems). This group intends to discuss and harmonise the requirements and limitations for Light UAS in six different working groups: Operations and FCL; Organisational approvals; Airworthiness; Detect and avoid; Command, control and communications; System safety ( 109 ). The output of the group will consist of draft regulatory proposals accepted by a significant number of European NAAs, as well as EASA and Eurocontrol. At the same time, an effort is being made to harmonise the regulations with a number of non-european Union countries such as the Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia, South Africa and the US. Once the group has reached agreement on these draft regulations, they will be provided to EUROCAE WG-7, WG-9 and RTCA SC0, where consultation with industry and other stakeholders will take place. In the past year, the group has redefined its terms of reference, to incorporate the growing membership and to define more working groups drafting regulations. During the presentation a short overview of the new organisational structure of the group and the work schedule to define a harmonised set of requirements will be presented. (1) UK ATM AND UAS OPERATIONS This presentation will cover four main areas of Unmanned Aircraft operations, Firstly a snapshot of where we are in the UK with regard to some fundamental issues and the current legislation for Unmanned Aircraft. Following this we will see a picture of what the UK UA operating environment looks like in terms of current permissions to fly and general activity for airspace segregation. Thirdly an indication of where UK CAA currently has influence in the development of UA requirements. And finally, a discussion looking at the interactions between ATC and the remote pilot. (17) ASTRAEA - OPENING THE AIRSPACE TO UAS ASTRAEA is a UK industry-led programme focusing on the technologies, systems, facilities and procedures that will allow autonomous vehicles to operate safely and routinely in civil airspace. For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to be routinely used for common operational missions, autonomous systems technology will require significant development. The current regulatory framework, as defined by the UK Civil Aviation Authority and EASA, will also need to be interpreted to enable UAS to operate alongside manned aircraft. The year programme is now nearing completion and, working in consultation with the CAA, will mature the systems and support the development of regulations to enable commercial UAS to operate autonomously in nonsegregated airspace within the current decade. There are numerous potential applications for UAS that will provide economic, environmental, security and societal benefits. The ASTRAEA consortium comprises BAE Systems, Cassidian, Cobham, QinetiQ, Rolls-Royce, Thales and AOS and supported by the Technology Strategy Board, the Welsh Government and Scottish Enterprise.

5 Unmanned Aircraft System Conference UAS OPERATIONS: DEPENDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT LONDON / 19-0 SEPTEMBER 01 (18) UK EVLOS OPERATIONS EVLOS or Extended Visual line of sight is a way of operating a SUA beyond the VLOS requirements laid down by CAP7. It does not mean that the aircraft is going beyond line of sight because it is still visible to the crew. Gatewing has been able to establish the EVLOS for its X100 operations. A fast fixed wing aircraft needs more airspace than a rotary or slow fixed aircraft. More airspace means also more risk for other airspace users, so additional requirements are set in place for EVLOS operations. Gatewing has made it is way of working acceptable in order to be able to execute EVLOS ops. After several test, attended by the UK CAA, and some modifications upon their request, we got the EVLOS approval. Gatewing can now fully extend its wings to cover the UK. SESSION : THE TECHNOLOGY THAT MAKES IT ALL HAPPEN (19) FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN CHALLENGES The Flight Control System (FCS) sits in the pilot s seat of an Unmanned Aircraft (UA). Without an autopilot, the FCS simply relays commands from a human pilot. With an autopilot, the human can be relegated to observer status. The autopilot is normally the most complex avionics box in the UA. Given it ll do most (if not all) of the flying, it s important to get it right. There are several challenges for autopilot design. These are broadly algorithmic, hardware and user-interface. Algorithmic challenges include getting a good estimate of aircraft states, then figuring out how to get the UA to do what s being asked. Hardware challenges include putting low in-front of volume, power, cost and weight for a unit that still provides the data and algorithms. The final challenge is the users. They want mission and payload flexibility but still with a safe and clean userinterface. (0) RAPID PROTOTYPING AND TRANSFER INTO OPERATION The presentation will cover current Southampton work on design optimization, operational modeling and UAV systems design; redundancy, reliability and testing; experience of use of rapid prototyping and its relevance to unmanned systems and current progress and thinking on the Seas project. (1) COMMUNICATIONS - WRC 01 OUTCOMES The recognition that a lack of suitable spectrum/frequencies would limit the growth of the UAS industry was mentioned as far back as 1999 at an early NATO conference on UAS in Brussels. Since then the UK CAA has led the way in placing the need for UAS spectrum/frequencies before the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) which resulted in Resolution 1 at the World Radio Conference (WRC) 007. This presentation looks at the outcomes of the subsequent WRC 01 in the light of the growing UAS industry. SESSION : RAES UAS INNOVATION AWARD () AUTONOMOUS TERMINAL AREA OPERATIONS FOR TE UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS In order for a highly autonomous UAS to operate safely in civilian airspace it must possess a level of situation awareness equivalent to (or greater than) that of a human pilot. Nowhere is this requirement more critical than the terminal region immediately surrounding an airfield where many aircraft (both manned and potentially unmanned) converge. A high level of situation awareness allows an autonomous vehicle to safely determine its path in order to minimise potential conflicts with other vehicles. This presentation details an artificial situation awareness and decision making system which allows an autonomous UAS to operate safely in a crowded terminal area. Future work which extends this research away from the terminal area and to multiple UAS is also introduced.

6 Unmanned Aircraft System Conference UAS OPERATIONS: DEPENDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT LONDON / 19-0 SEPTEMBER 01 () BIO INSPIRED - FLY LIKE A BIRD Exploiting wind energy is one possible way to extend flight duration for Unmanned Aerial System. Wind energy can also be used to minimise energy consumption for a planned path. In this paper, we consider uncertain time varying wind fields and plan a path through them. A Gaussian distribution is used to determine uncertainty in the time varying wind fields. We use Markov Decision Process to plan a path based upon the uncertainty of Gaussian distribution. Simulation results that compare the direct line of flight between start and target point and our planned path for energy consumption and time of travel are presented. The result is a robust path using the most visited cell while sampling the Gaussian distribution of the wind field in each cell. () A BUSINESS CASE FOR INTEGRATED VEHICLE HEALTH MANAGEMENT ON COMMERCIAL UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) is the transformation of system data into information to support operational decisions. Sensors placed on a platform monitor key performance features, these features are then analysed to assess the current, and predict the future, condition and performance of the platform. The assessment and prediction of the capability are then used to plan operations and maintenance actions accordingly. In order for IVHM to be implemented successfully more than adding sensors is needed an understanding how the IVHM is going to effect the business and what befits are there to the business and customer is needed. If applied to a UAS, IVHM can: improve the availability and readiness of a UAS or fleet of UAS, reduce maintenance actions, improve the reliability, reduce the need for redundancies, and extend product life all of which can help counter the use of less reliable parts and reduce the costs associated with running a UAS. Both IVHM and UAS are considered disruptive innovations threatening the status quo and causing the industry to rethink certain established ways of operating if both are developed together there can be a symbiosis that lessens the impact of change.

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