Air Transport

Work has begun at Eurocontrol on enabling integration of unmanned air vehicles into the air traffic management system as it is now, but also into future advanced systems planned under the Single European Sky SESAR research programme, according to the agency.

Eurocontrol's director of civil/military co-ordination Jean-Robert Cazarré, speaking at a 7-8 May UAV workshop held at the agency's Brussels headquarters, also made it clear that the same rules and equipment standards will apply to military UAVs as to civil ones - military operators will have no privileges if they want their machines to operate in non-segregated airspace, he said.

Eurocontrol's unmanned air systems activity manager Holger Matthiesen said that the agency is working on a two-stream programme for UAV airspace integration: the near-term objective is to enable UAV integration into today's ATM systems, but for the future there must be research into UAV capabilities that will enable the machines to integrate into the Single European Sky's advanced ATM systems beyond 2020.

The most discussed topic at the workshop, reports the agency, was ongoing development work on the sense-and-avoid on-board equipment UAVs will have to embody before they are permitted to operate in non-segregated airspace, and the need to ensure sufficient radio spectrum space to enable control of UAVs and the operation of their avionics and mission equipment.

Cazarré says: "The challenge of UAV integration is global. It will not happen without the relevant national and international organisations, agencies and bodies all cooperating closely with each other, and Eurocontrol has established just such synergies. In addition we need to sustain a strong partnership with industry, operators and airspace users, particularly the general aviation community, to ensure that all concerns are properly addressed."