Six years ago, when the UK’s £62m ASTRAEA (Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment) UAV project was launched, few had even considered the potential civilian uses for UAS, UAV or, in popular public and media parlance, ‘drones’.

Today, the situation is much changed. The ongoing war on terror has brought UAS (and the debates that accompany them) mainstream. Indeed, there are now a growing number of civil UAS stories appearing, from fears of privacy, to spotting pollution, to even a ‘name a drone’ contest with BBC’s children’s TV show Blue Peter. New peaceful applications, such as ‘drone journalism’, wildlife photography or using UAVs to monitor environmental concerns (such as ash tree dieback or countering rhino poaching), are coming thick and fast, emphasising the interest in this new disruptive technology from a variety of areas.

All the signs are that a pent-up civil UAS market may be ready to explode, with predictions ranging from it being worth some $62bn a year, or up to $400bn annually, if all services are included. The future, then, seems bright.

However, ASTRAEA was never set up to produce a commercial ‘approved’ UAS that could be bought off-the-shelf. Instead, it has been investigating and exploring the technologies and procedures needed to allow UAS and manned aircraft to co-exist safely in the same airspace. It has to be remembered that, while manned aviation has evolved organically over the past 100 years (and in parallel with the development of airspace rules), UAS have to integrate seamlessly with the existing airspace regulations. ASTRAEA, which consists of aerospace companies such as BAE Systems, Thales, Rolls-Royce and QinetiQ, as well as SMEs and academia, was set up to tackle this highly complex problem.

Yet, in parallel to the work done by ASTRAEA, there has been an explosion in the smaller UAS types for civil uses. These light UAVs under 150kg and line-of-sight only are now rapidly proliferating and are being used as subistitute cherry pickers, cranes or ladders for aerial photography, inspection and other tasks. It could be argued that ASTRAEA’s goal, to allow the routine operation of UAS in civil airspace, has already been achieved. This is for the mini- and micro UAV market, of which some 170 operators now been licensed by the UK CAA, using existing rules. This initial market experience is feeding into ASTRAEA’s work on larger UAS.

Key to ASTRAEA’s approach in attempting to understand such a complex, interrelated challenge has been ‘virtual certification’ and breaking the required tasks down into the novel parts unique to UAS to be solved.

For instance, tests by BAE Systems and Thales have used turboprop aircraft simulating UAVs to test sensors and computer algorithms for the ‘detect and avoid’ challenge.

Meanwhile, Cassidian installed radios in Mini Coopers (and a Welsh steam train!) in order to test an ultra robust, secure mobile network that is able to dynamically reconfigure on the fly to ensure data and communications get through. This capability of dealing automatically with lost or degraded links, is expecially critical for civil UAVs.

Another part of ASTRAEA has seen Cobham investigate the challenge of autonmous air-to-air refuelling with a probe and drogue system. Simulations have now progressed to a physical ground rig using two robotic arms to test the relative motions. If successful, this could be a major enabler for indefinitely airborne UASs — perhaps to undertake long-duration scientific or ocean monitoring.

Another presentation during the day looked at the UAS computer ‘brain’ or Autonomous Integrated Mission System (AIMS). This would comprise ‘detect and avoid’, diversion planning and weather awareness, as well as seeking to include elements of ‘airmanship’. For instance, not only might the autonomous pilot ‘know’ places for an emergency forced landing (e.g. football fields, or parks) from internal geographic databases, it would also be able to cross check with an IR camera to avoid the ‘car boot sale’ problem of humans suddenly being present in an open space. ASTRAEA has also been looking at giving the AI ‘icing awareness and avoidance’ — something that, tragically, human pilots still have difficulty with.

Indeed, ASTRAEA is not just about the technology but also about the procedures and new ways of thinking needed. One fascinating presentation during the conference looked at the issues of human factors and UAS operation, to test the hypothesis of how many UAS air vehicles can a human safely control? Simulated flights in a synthetic environment allowed the tests to incorporate multiple ATC regions and handovers, shift changes and even pile on the pressure with a malfunctioning UAV. Exploring and de-risking these issues of ‘trust’ in the machine are crucial to regulatory and operator acceptance.

But ASTRAEA is not alone. There is also increased interest around the world in unlocking this potentially lucrative civil UAS market. In Europe, for example, MIDCAS project tests are aimed at developing a UAS ‘sense-and-avoid’ system, with manned surrogate UAV flights to lead to a demonstration with an Alenia Sky-Y.

Meanwhile, in the US, which along with Israel has led the field in military UAS development, the situation is more unclear. The FAA had been mandated to prepare for the introduction of shared airspace by 2015. Indeed, the plan was for six national UAS test sites to be selected, to allow for a variety of different environments for UAS to be trialled. This, however, has now been postponed.

Finally, as recently as November, a new website for the JARUS (Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems) group went live at www.jarus-rpas.org. The aim of the group, which is drawn from national aviation regulators and EASA, is ‘to recommend technical, safety and operational requirements for the certification and safe integration of UAS/RPAS into airspace and at aerodromes.’ Clearly much groundwork has already been done by ASTRAEA.

The second phase of ASTRAEA is set to conclude in March, leading to speculation as to whether the project will be continued or whether it will fall victim to the funding ‘valley of death’ — the gap between R&D and bringing products to market. So far, the tests have included simulated flights in synthetic environments, testbench demonstrations and surrogate uses of manned aircraft (or even, in the case above, steam trains). The next obvious step, according to Dopping-Hepenstal would be a national flying UAS demonstrator.

Yet, there also may be other spin-off benefits beyond just opening civil airspace to UAS. Telemedicine or robotic surgery, for example, might be one spin-off, or new applications for the airborne/mobile dynamic reconfigurable IP network. Finally, the work done on the autonomous decision support system, for example in detecting icing, could have major benefits for manned aviation, perhaps giving GA pilots a ‘virtual co-pilot’ to assist in emergencies or bad weather. ASTRAEA has wider benefits than many might think.


Conclusion

In summary, as phase 2 of ASTRAEA concludes, there is much to be excited about, despite the challenges still outstanding. Essential research in ‘detect and avoid’, robust communications networks and human factors, to give just three examples, along with the whole ‘virtual certification’ means that many more the issues are now being understood. But, more importantly perhaps, is that the word is being spread — civil UAS use is now firmly on the public’s radar and wider interest is growing.

The applications then, that this disruptive technology may one day allow (e.g. Amazon parcels delivered directly to your location) probably haven’t even been thought of. As one attendee noted, when the question of ‘whether there was really a market’ was asked: “Henry Ford was told that there would only ever be a market for 100 automobiles, since that was the number of chauffeurs in New York city.”

It may seem to be cautious but ASTRAEA’s step-by-step approach is key to safely unlocking this new untapped future for aviation.