RAeS UAS Conference Day 2 #UAS2017

I recently give an update on day one here. Day two was opened by Jacqui Foster MEP who gave some interesting insight into the undertakings of European Parliament and the associated working groups. She was previously on the Transport committee from 1990-2004 which brought us open skies and passenger rights. She commented that she has an open door policy and welcomed any chats with her when in Brussels. You can find her on Twitter here @jfostermep

Simon Phippard QC, Bird & Bird discussed the Basic Regulation noting that legislative time had been taken up with complex technical questions. The legislation should be in place by March 2018 and will become English law from 1st June 2019.

Charlton Bland, Atkins gave a great overview of the use of drones in surveying. A key takeaway was “in the right hands, it’s a game changer” but commented that there were too many operators, with no formal qualifications in surveying, who were turning out data that was not fit for purpose. I later spoke with Charlton and we discussed how an inferior survey will ultimately cost the client much more in the long run. Atkins don’t currently fly drones in-house and prefer to work with skilled, experienced pilots with the right kit. For engineering and construction work they would typically work to 2-4cm accuracy. On the same panel we also heard from Costain’s Mohamed Hafez who operate their own aircraft in-house.

The stand out presentation of the day was from Pamela Cohn, McKinsey who summarised the use cases we are seeing in the drone industry. Full of clarity, energy and vision it highlighted that no matter how exotic they may be the use cases can be categorised as move, operate, survey, emit or entertain. Transportation of either humans or cargo is the use case likely to take the longest to reach maturity which echoes Mike Gadd’s comments from day one.

It is worth noting that Royal Aeronautical Society has a great reputation for looking ahead, I have been a member in the engineering grades for a number of years, and they often take a 50 year view on things. Predictions in 1966 included city centre VTOL stations and I would suggest we are only now a few years away from the reality. However despite this forward looking attitude it seems the conference is failing to capture the interest of many. By the second half of day 2 I counted only 37 people left in the room, a big drop from the not-that-great-to-start-with number of 71 that started on day one. During the coffee break I jokingly commented that perhaps those who left are just going to re-read the presentations from 2016 & 2015. It seems we are stuck between a tried-and-tested aviation approach that has kept the public safe for many years with an impeccable safety record versus the approach of the new glamorous, technology focused startups. Those same startups who fail fast but inevitably attract the attention of the investors who will fund, and hence kickstart, the development of the building blocks needed to unlock the true economical potential of the industry. We need to learn to create an approach that is greater than the sum of its parts. One only has to look towards SpaceX for an example of how to fail fast and realise grand ambitions.

At the end of the day Tony Henley wrapped up and we had time to go through some questions that had been submitted via sli.do. This is a great tool to submit questions and I have seen it used to great effect at tech conferences with 1000’s of questions being submitted however only three were submitted. My question had pretty much been answered on day one but Tony Henley read it out and it sparked some debate. Some in the room drew parallels to the Large Model Association and the British Parachute Association who are organisations with specialist knowledge and have responsibilities delegated to them by the CAA. My question was:

“Does the Edwards report in 1969 set a precedent to utilise transferable skills to create a specialised body to look after a new breed of air user?”

For those unfamiliar with the Edwards report the key point is

“Nevertheless, the Report recommends the constitution of a new Authority with responsibility for both economic and safety regulatory functions. Most interested people will agree—and the noble Lord himself has already agreed—that there is a need for change. The question is, precisely what kind of change?”

We only need to look towards recent developments in the USA to see that there are stakeholders apart from the aviation authority who want their voices heard when it comes to regulating operations in close proximity to the ground. It looks increasingly likely that states will be given authority to independently manage their own airspace below 200ft with the Trump administration preparing to launch

“a pilot program designed to let local communities try different regulatory concepts for controlling drone activity”

This has the potential to fragment the market and could make it increasingly difficult to agree on a common approach. In my opinion, it would be much better to regulate it at a Federal level through one specialist organisation but allow service providers and operators to interact within that framework using common standards.

Summarising the two days it is clear we need open, interoperable and freely available standards. There are organisations who are making moves to own the space and create a pay-to-play environment. Some standards are normally not available free of charge, but require a fee and we should look towards W3C for an example of how it can be done well. Altitude Angel have developed one such open and freely available standard the ‘Flight Declaration Protocol’.

Sun Microsystems defines the criteria for open formats as follows:[2]

• The format is based on an underlying open standard
• The format is developed through a publicly visible, community driven process
• The format is affirmed and maintained by a vendor-independent standards organization
• The format is fully documented and publicly available
• The format does not contain proprietary extensions

(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format)

I will draw one final analogy to the internet. The business model for the internet might not be straightforward but it works. You pay for the services you use otherwise you are the product and your interactions are being monetized. Those services in turn pay other providers for server space, bandwidth or access to content. The system of systems works because standards such HTML 5.0 allow us to communicate across many different browsers. The standard is open and free to use in either proprietary or open software projects. Whether I use a Mac, PC, iOS or Android it just works.

Utilising low level airspace is going to require a paradigm shift in our approach alongside some joined up thinking if we are to realise the benefits in the near future.