Ground Risk Model for UAVs

Abstract

The Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems (JARUS) has promulgated a methodology that it calls a “Specific Operations Risk Assessment” (SORA) to assist regulators and operators of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to determine how to conduct an operation safely (JARUS, 2019). SORA has been adopted as part of the official regulatory regime for UAS in Europe (European Union Aviation Safety Agency [EASA], 2022, pp. 34–196), Australia (Civil Aviation Safety Authority [CASA], 2021b), and Canada (Transport Canada, 2021). New Zealand has adopted SORA as an unofficial tool to assess applications for certification of ‘complex’ UAS operations (Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand [CAANZ], 2022), although like the other regulators claims to be open to consider other risk assessment methodologies