EASA has published its first set of Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance Material (GM) for the U-space regulatory framework, under EU Regulations 2021/664, 2021/665 and 2021/666, on December 19, 2022.
This is the result of an EASA-led collaboration that includes more than 30 experts and representatives from civil aviation authorities and industry at a European level. The AMC/GM regulatory framework for the U-Space has been developed taking into account the latest industry and stakeholder developments and represents the state of the art of the U-Space concept, systems and technology.
Remember that the U-Space is designed to:
- Mitigate the risk of collision with manned aircraft and between UAS and the consequent air and ground risks.
- Allow efficient and fair use of airspace.
- Enable safe, dense and complex drone operations, e.g. Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS)
U-space is supported by a suite of new services, delivered digitally and automated, within parts of the airspace.
At this stage of the implementation, U-Space is not expected to support passenger operations, which today are performed by VTOL-capable manned aircraft and could ultimately be performed autonomously with e-VTOL. UAS.
In fact, the U-space system is intended to ensure the segregation of manned aircraft subject to traffic control or the free space to remain clear from manned aircraft not subject to air traffic control, including VTOL-capable manned aircraft. Currently envisioned UAS operations in urban environments are UAS carrying payload or goods, but not humans. Therefore, today, the U-Space regulation has been designed and is based on the general assumption that drone-to-drone collisions ultimately have limited consequences.
The integration of UAS passenger transport operations will require reassessment of the entire U-space framework, with a particular focus on:
- The Acceptable Level of Security (ALS) that must be enforced to maintain
security levels for manned aviation, that is, to mitigate the risk of human casualties.
- Additional enablers/prerequisites that may be needed to support the safety of such operations, eg additional mandatory U-space services and on-board functionalities.
EASA now looks forward to the next steps of the U-space implementation, which will formally start across Europe from 26 January 2023 with the entry into force of the U-space regulatory framework as per the 2021 European Union Regulations. /664, 2021/665 and 2021/666.
You can download the published material at the following link:
https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/downloads/137405/en
