This session is dedicated to navigating the complex regulatory landscape surrounding the use of drones in infrastructure projects. From safety considerations to beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations, this session will delve into key concerns and strategies for compliance. Infrastructure and transportation projects are complex, involve extensive planning and organization, and are often time-sensitive and critical. When utilizing drones for infrastructure inspection, planning or construction, following regulations and safety procedures is paramount. Flying drones in urban and built environments, or even in restricted airspace, makes infrastructure work uniquely challenging when it comes to regulatory compliance. Following short presentations, a group of regulatory experts and industry leaders will engage in a panel discussion on the evolving regulatory framework for drones in infrastructure projects. Whether you’re a project manager, drone operator, or regulatory compliance officer, this session offers essential guidance for harnessing the full potential of drones while maintaining safety and compliance in infrastructure projects.
What Does my Organization Need for Safe BVLOS Operations?
While the draft FAA BVLOS regulations haven’t been released, there are steps that organizations should be doing now to be ready. This presentation will go over the steps organizations should proactively implement to fly BVLOS under waivers/exemptions/COA now, as well as be ready for future regulations. We will show how one organization (Asylon Robotics) matured their organization and safety culture to obtain FAA approval for complex operations including BVLOS over people/vehicles in controlled airspace.
Wendy Ljungren, Anzen Unmanned
Enabling BVLOS – a Reality in Digital Airspace
Digital Airspace is an industry term that encapsulates the array of use cases and solutions that are envisaged to support flying devices (e.g., drones), future aircraft types and related services. Reliable and high performing communications is fundamental to this transformation. 3GPP-based communications technology like 4G and 5G is a strong candidate to realize the Digital Airspace. Today, the UAS industry is focusing on ways to provide optimal ways for required air coverage, performance and availability. Another critical factor is the role of Spectrum regulators looking at ways to make use of commercial spectrum to cover the air. These factors will play an important role in the UTM readiness index of individual countries to develop regulations, standards, procedures and technology maturity levels to support automated flight approvals and management of beyond visual line of sight.
Kapil Mittal, Ericcson Drone
Novel Approaches to Ensure DAA-Enabled, BVLOS UAV Operations Stay Well Clear of Crewed Aircraft as Intended
UAVs are now carrying out practical, beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations, which include inspection of critical energy generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure, flown by remote pilots in command. Scaling is underway which shows great promise for decarbonization as well as operational efficiency gains. Waivers have been provided to owner/operators by civil aviation authorities on the basis that surveillance-based detect and avoid or detect and alert (DAA) capabilities are deployed to provide the remote pilot with the situational awareness and alerting of approaching aircraft which might intrude on their operations, with sufficient warning to maneuver the UAV and stay well clear. Effectively, the responsibilities of both the traditional air traffic controller and the crewed pilot using visual flight rules (VFR) have been transferred to the remote pilot using the deployed DAA capabilities. The presentation will introduce novel, data-driven technology and methodologies designed to ensure that the relied-upon DAA capabilities continuously function as intended, and provide critical knowledge to aviation safety stakeholders.
Tim J. Nohara, Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc.
