AVIACENTER NEWS

The conference is a key industry event on UAS in the Eurasian Region and is traditionally attended by organizations from Russia, the CIS states, Europe, Asia and other regions of the world.

This year the conference was attended by over 200 delegates including representatives of federal authorities, industry associations from Russia and many other states; international developers and manufacturers of UAS and specialized equipment; UAS operators; representatives of scientific and educational institutions; and media.

The plenary session of the conference was attended by representatives of the ministries, the leadership of the AeroNet working group within the National Technology Initiative, the AERONET Association, the Center for Strategic Development in Civil Aviation (AVIACENTER) and representatives of major international organizations of UAS manufacturers and operators.

Gleb Babintsev, General Director of the Association of Operators and Developers of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (AERONET), presented a report on current issues in the legislative regulation of UAS.

“The most important issue today, which I outlined in my speech, is joint safe flights. This is the proper integration, not the one that is offered to us, but the one that is needed by practitioners, customers, and operators themselves,” said Gleb Babintsev.

Mr. Babintsev also noted: “The conference is needed and important. We attend it every year; we support it every year. In 2016, this conference helped us a lot with resolving issues with the Air Code of the Russian Federation. It concerned the notorious Federal Law No. 462. Specifically, following that conference, a resolution was introduced to the Upper Chamber of Parliament. It was reviewed and it was one of the factors that contributed to the adoption of the Federal Law No.291, which somehow corrected the mistakes of the previous law.”

The head of the AeroNet working group, Sergey Zhukov, addressed in his conference speech the execution of the AeroNet roadmap within the National Technology Initiative and the roadmap on legislation improvement in the scope of the AeroNet strategy, as well as his vision of its further implementation.

“As the head of the AeroNet working group and the working group on legislation, I see my task in making these documents relevant. At the conference we have traditionally reviewed the three aspects: legislation, UAS use and strategic planning,” said Sergey Zhukov.

He added: “With regard to the phased improvement of the regulatory framework, a group of highly professional colleagues in our community have developed a roadmap to improve legislation and eliminate administrative barriers in the scope of the AeroNet roadmap. This includes 33 events and about 50 regulatory acts to be developed. Today, three of these acts have already been adopted. Several of them – in FAR 128, FAR 246, FAR 249 – are under development. Airworthiness standards of helicopter and tilt-wing types up to 750 kg of take-off weight are under development; a classifier of unmanned aircraft systems and a number of regulatory acts (at least 10) must be elaborated this year by the Ministry of Transport and the Government of the Russian Federation.”

“Also, development, manufacturing, certification, and testing of UAS, including with a take-off weight of more than 30 kg, require their own regulatory support and these points should be introduced into the roadmap on legislation,” said Sergey Zhukov.

 Eduard Falkov, Head of Division of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “State Research Institute of Aviation Systems”, shared his opinion on the communications standards of the unmanned aircraft industry.

“It is necessary to ensure that the external pilot is aware of the aeronautical situation during the flight. The decision on the 1090 standard was adopted at  the state level. So far it does not ensure the awareness of the external pilot, which is unacceptable for provision of an adequate level of flight safety. The industry community from among the conference delegates, representing operators of unmanned and manned aircraft, emphasize the need to introduce in the Russian Federation the VDL-4 standard or another standard that provides situational awareness of the pilot according to the V2V principle,” said Falkov.

Robert Garbett, General Director of Drone Major Group,the UK, made a presentation on the subject “The future of the UAS industry”.

“Today, my presentation was all about the future of the unmanned industry and how important it is to realize that this is the fastest moving industry that mankind has ever known. And as such, it is really difficult to regulate and to develop standards for. The international standards, which we are getting faster and faster at developing, hopefully will help create a robust regulation regime. I hope it will not be overregulated”, said Robert Garbett.

 Besides, Robert Garbett noted: “I really enjoyed the conference. What is refreshing is that the issues and the solutions that Russia is coming up with to solve the issues that surround this industry, are exactly the same as everywhere else in the world.”

During the special session, Anton Koren presented to the conference audience a report on the subject “The future of urban air mobility”, in which he introduced the AVIACENTER’s forecast for the world UAS market and the world market for urban air mobility, and he outlined what kind of projects, pertaining to urban aviation mobility using UAS, are already being implemented in the world and when they become realizable in Russia and Eurasian Region.

The presentation by Anton Koren introduced interesting projects, including the testing of Ehang via a flight over Dubai with a passenger on board and the plans by Volocopter to perform flights over Singapore this year. Anton Koren also noted: “A few days before the conference, Ehang was tested in Vienna. This means that these projects are already being tested and implemented all over the world, drones are already flying in the form of specific commercial test flights.”

Anton Koren highlighted: “An important aspect is that the market capacity by 2035 is estimated at 32 billion dollars. Where our country is now and what share of this market it will take, is a rhetorical question. Another important question regarding the plans to create a regulatory environment for UAS urban air mobility, remains open.”

In his speech at the conference, Anton Koren also made forecasts on another interesting aspect with regard to urban air mobility: “We reviewed several international cases and there are forecasts that we made for market capacity. The most capacious segment will be intercity transportation, or, according to the Russian classification, commuter transportation on short distances between neighboring cities.”

“It is possible to forecast that the Airmetro segment will develop, which is an actual urban aeronautical mobility on specifically dedicated corridors with a specific schedule and regularity, also ensuring a lowercost per passenger-kilometer. As for Airtaxi segment, unfortunately, it requires a rather large amount of infrastructure and landing sites, helipads within walking distance of about two and a half minutes. Unfortunately, not all cities and megalopolises can provide this. As for the Airtaxi economics, it is also very costly compared to Airmetro, i.e. the cost per passenger-kilometer will be very high at this stage for a successful commercial story,” said the General Director of the AVIACENTER.

Aurore Brien, Director of Strategic Development of the Japan UAS Industrial Development Association (JUIDA), shared her takeaway from the conference.

“It is my first time at the conference “Unmanned Aircraft” organized by the AVIACENTER. It is a very precise and detailed conference. What is good about this, is that compared to many conferences it really is about the drone industry and not invasive to other industries. It is only the expert opinion on a specific industry involving drones that are present here, and that is a good advantage against other world conferences, I think. Also, the participation of foreign representatives from the countries of the Eurasian Union and the CIS, the European Union, including the UK, Italy and others, as well as Japan, helps to present the mainstream of the industry in the world,” said the representative of JUIDA.

Besides, Aurore Brien spoke about the experience of applying UAS in various areas of the Japanese economy and, in particular, about the new kind of UAS application that is now emerging in the world: “When you are not really familiar with Japan, you might find the system of indoor flights very weird, because it can be used to lower the overtime work. The Japanese people work a lot. It is actually not a stereotype, it is true. And that can affect their health and well-being.”

“Having the type of drones flying autonomously in GPS-identified environment, following a pre-registered path inside an office, can alert employees when they should leave the office. Thus, this technology meets the specific needs of the Japanese economy. It is still under development, it is not on the market, yet for now, the tests have been quite successful,” said Aurore Brien.

Another representative from Japan, Kota Kandori, Director of Terra Drone Corporation, prepared a presentation on the international experience of applying commercial UAS.

          When presenting his company, which is among the ten largest world companies of the UAS industry in the world, Kota Kandori specified which forms and technologies for infrastructure monitoring are the most efficient at the moment. He talked about the most accurate methods for interpreting measurement results and demonstrated cases of UAS application.

          In addition, the representative of the company from Japan held a master class on application of various types of drones for commercial tasks.

          Kota Kandori noted that Russia is one of the most advanced countries with regard to development of unmanned technology.

          The representative of the Italian company EUROUSC, Marco Ducci, addressed in his report the key European trends in development of the unmanned aircraft market. In particular, he shared the experience of adapting and incorporating the recommended practices by ICAO and JARUS into legislation and the regulatory environment of the European Commission and further into the regulatory acts of the European Union member-states.

          The expert also shared the experience of organizational design of working groups and interaction principles during the development of international and national standards.

          Both Marco Ducci and other foreign delegates emphasized that the most efficient way to form the regulatory environment of a new industry, which is in its infancy stage, is the joint work of international experts on the same platforms and the constant exchange of best practices.

Summarizing the results of the conference “Unmanned Aircraft - 2019”, General Director of AVIACENTER, Anton Koren, noted that every year at the conference we see how unmanned technologies are developing with yet higher tempo that foreign partners are demonstrating and how much we need to catch up to in a short time to be among the leaders in introduction of new technologies. "One of the basic medium-term goals must be creating an effective and safe environment for integrating unmanned and manned aircraft in a single airspace, creating a regulatory environment and technology solutions."

Furthermore, based on the strategic session of the conference "Unmanned Aircraft - 2019", specific proposals were developed for improving the regulatory framework in the field of unmanned aircraft that will be introduced to federal authorities.

The conference traditionally hosted an exhibition of innovative Eurasian and international products and solutions by enterprises of the unmanned aircraft systems industry.

The conference was organized by the Center for Strategic Development in Civil Aviation (AVIACENTER).

General media partner: The official paper of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation – the newspaper “Transport of Russia”.

The 6^th International Conference will change name to "Unmanned Aviation – 2020" and will be held in Moscow on April 23-24, 2020.