Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) - the unstoppable future of aviation and its impact on ATSEP

Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) - the unstoppable future of aviation and its impact on ATSEP

Carlos Viegas IFATSEA - SESAR SJU Liason

As all who read last year’s installment

in this ATSEP magazine will remember,

it was promised that a second installment

would bring into focus the introduction

to the subject of RPAS then

made.

The time spanning these two articles

has been well spent; at the time for example

when we spoke of the need to

have mandatory detect and avoid systems

and software on all small RPAS

and very especially the line of sight variety,

the response at the time was: “too

heavy, too expensive…not possible!”.

Today all are unanimous; yes, it is absolutely

necessary and unavoidable.

This can be used to Gage the extreme

speed at which the RPAS are being understood

and their unstoppable potential

is being made clear.

But…as always the aeronautical community

and its institutions need to have

a cool collective head and look further

down the time line to be able to regulate

adequately, this is no easy task because

the regulator for the first time is

put at the door of an as yet unseen scenario:

..the regulator from now on needs

to be proactive in the case of RPAS but

also in all other highly automated ATM

systems.

Tradition dictated that regulation would

come into force in a scenario of well-known

variables which were not foreseen

to change in the near future…

..that was until we all started to think of

new highly automated ATM systems deployment.

Then we realized that today change in

ATM is possible and demanded at a

breakneck speed, so the regulator

needs to adapt its regulated strategy

too and deployment needs to give the

regulator feedback on issues found in

change management so that regulation

may be reviewed, this is an endless

cycle from now on.

Another issue of concern…and this

might be odd coming from an engineer,

who is above all a concerned human

being, we cannot let ourselves be

driven by our capability to produce new

and cheap solutions…with no time to

test them thoroughly and certainly no

time to evaluate what are the consequences

of a huge paradigm shift: integrating

an ever increasing number of

RPAS in non-segregated airspace

The economic appeal is easy to see but

the initial investment to guarantee

safety and security to all RPAS in their

access to non-segregated airspace is

not trivial as is the method in which this

takes place.

As yet no clear answers come up on

how the communications, telemetry and

payload of RPAS that take off from platforms

not situated at airports are controlled

or logged.

Recent documents state that the operator

of the RPAS is responsible…. well

yes, we know that! it would always be

so.

Probably the most important question

would be: does he care?

Plug and Fly springs to mind as a solution

to the communications and telemetry

part but the payload issue is clearly

very different and more complex.

Small RPAS cannot be seen isolated

from the universe in which they fly, the

dimensions of these, while small, interacts

with huge and passenger carrying

airliners and as such represent a huge

potential to disrupt safe and secure passenger

carrier operations.

This is of course only true if proper regulatory

measures are not put in place

before they take to the skies in droves.

The Impact on ATSEP roles and responsibilities:

This depends hugely on how and what

technologies are used to integrate the

digital communication network that will

serve all the air systems.

If these are integrated with other highly

automated ATM systems in a future

SMC, then the ATSEP have their work

cut out for sure.

The monitoring and control of this network

as well as its systems health management

is critical to maintain the RPAS

operating safely and predictably.

This is true only for the small systems

foreseen to fly below approach level because

above that the RPAS will have to

take off and land in airports due to their

dimension and this means that they will

use the same systems that the manned

aircraft use.

In both case it is however very important

to retain the fact that the criticality

of the ground systems that the ATSEP

monitor and control is of a very much

higher level than is true today.