Drone Technology
to defend against a drone swarm. A SkyWall300 vehicle
mount is planned for completion before the end of the
year. “This system is ideally suited to the protection of
critical national infrastructure, especially airports, where
a vehicle can be rapidly deployed to an area to extend a
defensive position - for example at one end of the
runway,” says Charlton.
Although SkyWall100 is already in use, testing
activities to enhance its capabilities are ongoing.
SkyWall300 has also been “extensively tested”, says
Charlton, has been shown at a variety of military events
in Europe and North America and is “likely to see its first
operational deployment before the end of 2019”.
“SkyWall300 has completed testing and two
production units are being built, with one of these
expected to be operationally deployed before the end of
this year,” says Charlton. “Future development of the
systems will include an extended range projectile
(SP40-ER) that will be manoeuvrable in flight with the
capability to capture drones at ranges potentially in
excess of 1,000m.”
COMPUTER VISION
Another innovative technology that will integrate,
manage and control drones in the airspace is Iris
“Unmanned aerial systems
need to implement and
rely on systems that run on
computer vision and deep
learning algorithms to
help classify, avoid and
detect other objects”
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DRONE AIRSPACE INTEGRATION
According to Gavin Wishart, chairman of the Association of Remotely
Piloted Aircraft Systems UK, drones operating in a controlled airspace
must be clearly identifiable and able to react to ATC instructions as
manned systems do. As is the case with manned aviation, unmanned
aerial systems need to fly accurately within defined tolerances, react
in a timely manner to ATC instructions and meet the demands of the
associated operational requirements.
Wishart says, “When drones operate in uncontrolled airspace, the
same rules and approvals apply as with manned aviation. The key
element is that their detect and avoid systems have to be as capable as
manned see and avoid capabilities.”
However, Wishart does not believe that legally-operated drones
pose a greater risk to life than other forms of aviation - and argues that
the opposite is probably true because more dangerous flights can be
conducted without any crew.
“The problem posed to other forms of aviation is that drone
operations are more cost-effective than manned flights and potentially
safer, because there is no second-party risk,” he says.
As far as necessary changes to national airspace are concerned,
Wishart believes airspace capacity is only constricted around key
airports and some upper air corridors, “where technology limits what
can be assessed as safe separation distances”. Nevertheless, he admits
the integration of a large number of additional aircraft, such as drones,
into the airspace will require a “radical change in how we control and
deconflict traffic and maintain safe separation”.
“It is clear that voice enacted-management is not sustainable and
can be imprecise. We need to consider more automated systems
and artificial intelligence could well have a useful role to play here, if
we can build confidence in such systems and assure their integrity
levels,” he says.
Automation’s Casia system. The US
artificial intelligence and avionics
company claims Casia is the first
commercially available computer vision
detect-and-avoid system that enables
Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS)
operations for autonomous vehicles and
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).
Such systems are of interest to Yariv
Bash, who is CEO at Israel-based company
Flytrex. The company provides an
on-demand drone delivery service. He
says, “Unmanned aerial systems don’t
have human eyes onboard and can’t
communicate with or listen to air traffic
control, so they need to implement and
rely on systems that run on computer
vision and deep learning algorithms to
help classify, avoid, and detect other
objects, in order to keep drones safe
during flight,” he says.
“Alongside this, the FAA is working
diligently on laws and regulations that
are intended to ensure that commercial
drone operations do not interfere with
manned aviation in any way in terms of
safety and operations.”
4 // SkyWall physically
removes a rogue drone
without destroying it so
analysis and investigation
can be carried out
5 // Drones are
increasingly maneuvrable
and powerful, increasing
the risk to aviation in
restricted airspace
(Photo: ASG ltd)
4 5
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