Drone 360-degree study

Customer

Luftfartsverket (LFV)

Context

Over the past ten years, the developments, impact, and issues from Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) on the rest of manned aviation have been steadily rising.

In alignment with this raise, the technical capabilities of UAS have increased along with their popularity in usage. Their increase in popularity has soared at a very high rate, that was not initially expected.

This exponential growth in UAS has increased integration pressures within the wider civil Air Traffic Management (ATM) context including interoperability between Remotely Piloted Air Systems (RPAS) and civil ATM. This is especially the case when features available on the UAS mean that they are being operated by personnel with no previous experience of aviation regulations or the impact and risk that certain types of operations bring.

Role of Helios

Helios, a reliable consultancy partner for LFV, was tasked with undertaking a 360-degree study of the developments within the unmanned aviation community to help influence LFV future strategies. The paper needed to explore and evaluate the changing environment, what this means from a regulatory perspective and how this might impact LFV from both a risk and a business opportunity perspective.

Results

Helios produced a high-level report, analysing the developments in UAS from European and global perspectives. It addressed ongoing integration and harmonisation efforts today and forecasted future developments to further facilitate ATM needs. In addition, the report gave a detailed look at the regulatory developments in Europe and Internationally.

The report was summarised by LFV and was used as an input to discuss at board level. The output from the study aided LFV in their future strategy for engagement with UAS initiatives.

For further information on this project please contact Philip Church.