Civil UAS Rules Shaping Up in Europe

Unmanned Vs. Manned: How Civil UAS is Shaping Up in Europe

[Avionics Today 10-15-2014] The European Commission, like many government agencies across the globe, is racing to regulate airspace for civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) as quickly as technology and business opportunities in the sector are developing. The commission has begun a “Definition Phase” aimed at aligning civil UAS regulations with ongoing Air Traffic Management (ATM) Research and Development (R&D) requirements for manned aviation with the SESAR 2020 implementation program with the hopes of accommodating the growing UAS community. 

The implementation European RPAS Roadmap, published by the European Commission, calls for initial integration of civil UAS by 2016, but even the members and stakeholders involved in the SESAR partnership don’t know if it’s possible to get the burgeoning technology on track with the rest of implementation.

  EUROPA - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - European Commission calls for tough standards to regulate civil drones

The new standards will cover the following areas

• Strict EU wide rules on safety authorisations. Safety is the first priority for EU aviation policy. EU standards will be based on the principle that civil drones (remotely piloted aircraft) must provide an equivalent level of safety to 'manned' aviation operations. EASA, the European Aviation Safety Agency, will start developing specific EU-wide standards for remotely piloted aircraft.
• Tough controls on privacy and data protection. Data collected by remotely piloted aircraft, must comply with the applicable data protection rules and data protection authorities must monitor the subsequent collection and processing of personal data. The Commission will assess how to ensure data protection rules apply fully to remotely piloted aircraft and propose changes or specific guidance where it is needed.
• Controls to ensure security. Civil drones can be subject to potential unlawful actions and security threats, like other aircraft. EASA will start work to develop the necessary security requirements, particularly to protect information streams, and then propose specific legal obligations for all players concerned (e.g. air traffic management, the operator, the telecom service providers), to be enforced by national authorities.
• A clear framework for liability and insurance. The current third-party insurance regime has been established mostly in terms of manned aircraft, where mass (starting from 500kg) determines the minimum amount of insurance. The Commission will assess the need to amend the current rules to take into account the specificities of remotely piloted aircraft.
• Streamlining R&D and supporting new industry. The Commission will streamline R&D work, in particular the EU R&D funds managed by the SESAR Joint Undertaking to keep lead times for promising technologies for the insertion of RPAS into the European airspace as short as possible. SMEs and start-ups in the sector will get industrial support to develop appropriate technologies (under Horizon 2020 and COSME programmes).