Identification, categorisation and gaps of safety indicators for U-space

Abstract

Many civilian applications of commercial unmanned aircraft are being planned to operate in the years ahead. Several countries have developed their own framework to design the operation of unmanned aircraft and the different services that demand safe operation. This paper focuses on the European framework denoted as U-space which concludes with the joint integration of manned and unmanned aircraft in the airspace. U-space is a set of novel services and specific procedures designed to provide safe and efficient access into the airspace to the airspace users. U-space constitutes a management system to organise unmanned operations and provides relevant information to drone operators as well as manned aircraft, air navigation service providers and authorities. The understanding of associated hazards and risks to unmanned aircraft is a critical issue for their operation in complex and non-segregated airspaces. The safety assessment developed herein is crucial to identify safety indicators for U-space. In addition, the identification of safety indicators was used to identify gaps in U-spaces services that are not correctly covered by the U-space framework. Particularly, several safety indicators are identified that currently U-space services do not consider and can imply an increase in the operational risk of unmanned operations.