With Riga Conference in 2015, Europe has entered a path towards a unified regulatory framework design to allocate airspace with a growing number of drones. Its diversity, innovativity, and international structure is offering huge potential for new jobs. EASA has been assigned by European Commission to develop two main aspects:
1. EU Regulatory Framework for drone operation
2. Proposals for the regulation of low-risk drone operations, key elements of the future Implementation Rules (IRs)
With a starting point in Riga Declaration, and building up on Regulations (EC) No 216/2008 (‘Basic Regulation’), A-NPA ( Advance Notice of Proposed Amendment) introduces three main category of operations and asks for a public consultation. This consultation period has already over, but to see how these reviews are accounted for in the Technical Opinion, the Explanatory Note of the opinion can be referred.
In the report, drones are grouped under two main categories; remotely piloted and autonomous. An autonomous drone, defined by ICAO as: A drone that does not allow pilot intervention in the management of the flight. Aside sounding like science fiction, one of the reasons that EASA has switched to using the term drone and categorize it (remotely piloted or autonomous) rather than using UAS or RPAS to point the system, is to ensure a fast growing development of autonomy of drones.
For further information about the topic, refer to PART 2 : A-NPA – Present Regulatory Context to discover the present European and International regulations.
Ref 1. The Future of Flying. Conference on remotely piloted aircraft systems. Riga, 6 March 2015
Ref 2. Riga Declaration
Ref 3. Regulation (EC) No.216/2008 (Basic Regulation)
Ref4. A-NPA 2105-10 Introduction of a regulatory framework for the operation of drones
Ref 5. Technical Opinion by EASA
Ref 6. Explanatory note of the opinion
Ref 7. ICAO Doc. 10019 AN/507 Manuel on Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems