Inside Unmanned Systems provides actionable business intelligence to decision-makers and influencers operating within the global UAS community. Features include analysis of key technologies, policy/regulatory developments and new product design.
Issue link: https://insideunmanned.epubxp.com/i/470284
47 unmanned systems inside Spring 2014 air European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)— Although an EU agency under the jurisdiction and supervision of the European Commission, EASA executes European laws in a national framework and can also perform control and supervision. For unmanned aircraft in Belgium and other member states, EASA has jurisdic- tion over UAVs with a takeoff mass of 150 kilograms or more. EUROCONTROL— Founded by the EU member states but independent of the EU, this orga- nization is tasked with safeguarding higher airspace—above 24,500 feet. So, a lot of entities might, would, or could play a role in the Belgian UAV scene. Industry Perspective On the operators' side, the BeUAS is a network that defends the interests of Belgium's civilian unmanned aviation sector. In the absence of leg- islation, many groups of this type have sprung up around Europe with the goal of helping each other navigate the ins and outs of growing the market segment in spite of the confusion. BeUAS President Michael Maes says if you want to fly a UAV in Belgium, you have to ask the BCAA. "Operators in Belgium can usually get per- mission to undertake non-commercial flights, meaning for R&D;, testing, training or govern- ment purposes. If anyone is operating commer- cially, then they do not have any permission to do so from the BCAA." But does that mean…? Yes, says Maes, "It is clear that most of the operators flying in Belgium today are doing so illegally." Of course, Maes hastens to add, BeUAS does not encourage this situation. "We do not want our members to fly unsafe, which means flying in prohibited, restricted, dangerous or controlled airspace without any permission," he says. But this is what it comes to: Maes would like to see everyone follow the rules. But few rules ex- ist for UAVs and, with money potentially to be made it a "wild frontier' scenario. The lack of dedicated radio frequencies allo- cated to UAVs by the International Telecommu- nication Union (ITU) doesn't help, Maes adds. "For the dedicated frequencies, 2.4 GHz is used in 98 percent of the small drones because it is a civil band which can more or less be used by anybody," he explains. "It does create issues such as interference with WiFi or car keys. The power limitations also limit the safety of long distance operations, going farther than one kilometer or around or within buildings." BeUAS has been a key partner to the BCAA, helping to hammer out the upcoming royal de- cree that will put Belgium's UAV house in order when it comes into force, hopefully later this year. Then again, let's remember what we are talk- ing about—the Belgian Royal Decree will set the rules and regulations for UAV operations in Belgium, but the problem of a pan-European regulatory framework still remains. Security risks could impact RPAS use I nterestingly, the European Commission's Remotely Piloted Aircraft Sys- tems (RPAS) Roadmap Report makes specific mention of global naviga- tion satellite systems (GNSS) in the context of security: "RPAS run the risk of being hijacked and used as weapons against other airspace users or targets on the ground. Terrorists could also use their own RPAS to crash into specific targets or jam or spoof the Global Positioning System signals of other RPAS, causing serious hazards to air safety. "This could be achieved by any means like physical attacks (e.g. destruc- tion of parts of the RPAS components, i.e. the ground station or the remote pilot), electronic at- tacks (e.g. jamming or spoofing of data links or satellite navigation systems) or cyber-attacks (e.g. hacking via the internet, spoofing, and cyber-attack on specific information net- works). The consequences of such cyber- attacks could represent a major challenge for future large scale RPAS operations."