European Parliament, Safety Agency Tackling UAS Regulations
Jacqueline Foster, member of the European Parliament. Photo: AUVSI.
The European Parliament has created a framework for the risk-based operation of small unmanned aircraft, and the European Aviation Safety Agency is developing the regulations, but industry and other countries need to play a big role as the efforts continue, said speakers at the opening day of AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Europe in Brussels.
Jacqueline Foster, a member of the European Parliament who spearheaded that body’s framework resolution on unmanned systems last fall — “I sweated blood to get this through,” she said — argued it is critical that nations should take an international approach when dealing with UAS.
The wrong approach is “let’s have a rule for the EU,” she said.
Regulations also have to be risk based, she said, because “the world is risk based. … We have to have enough flexibility to make sure we benefit from how this moves forward. Otherwise, Asia is going to be steaming ahead while we are sitting here figuring out what’s going to be in the next line of the regulation.”
Foster said the industry is moving from the military side to the civil side, and the commercial arena is ready to grow.
“Europe leads the way in drone development with 2,500 drone operators, and in the U.K. alone we have more than 600 operators providing services from photography to land surveillance,” she said. “This is huge, quite frankly.”
Foster incorporated some concerns about privacy from another committee in the resolution, but said there are strong EU protections for privacy, so “we don’t need more laws, as it happens.”
The actual writing of regulations to match the parliament’s action falls to EASA, based in Germany. Trevor Woods, the certification director for EASA, says the agency is aware that it must maintain safety but can’t issue so many regulations that the industry can’t fly.
“We want a low regulatory burden, so the approach we use is as light as we can achieve with the right safety level,” he said. “We would like to use a risk-based approach.”
EASA also wants to make use of industry standards, because “industry is innovating the technology. Industry should be able to help to put together those standards.”
EASA is working on a UAS roadmap for the European Union to develop the implementing rules for three classes of aircraft: open aircraft, which would be small, safe UAS; larger ones that could take on specific jobs, such as precision agriculture or package delivery; and very large vehicles that obviously would fall under manned aviation standards.
“What I want from EASA is to make sure that the best brains and the best of those from the national civil aviation authorities are included in these discussions,” Foster said about the pending regulatory work. “I don’t want anything done in isolation.
“That includes the manufacturers,” she said. “I expect the manufacturers to be part and parcel of the group of people who will find a solution to this. I do not want the manufacturers left at the back of the room, so the regulators come up with what they think is fantastic and the manufactures are left scratching their heads and saying, we can’t comply. Because that’s not going to help anything.”
The conference, which began on the same day as the terrorist attacks at the airport and a subway station in Brussels, will proceed tomorrow with an abbreviated day of programming.
