Before Takeoff: Regulation, Safety and Legal Exposure
How will safety management systems (SMS) define an operation? What are some of the lessons learned developing and gaining approval for BVLOS operations? How can operators protect their legal exposure and reputation?
Session moderated by Stephen Sutton, Flyby Guys. Presentations include:
Legal Issue-Spotting When Customers and Drone Service Providers Share Data
Customers want drone service providers to integrate their platforms with customer IT systems to help streamline the flow and management of data. Thanks to such integrations, drone delivery and e-commerce companies can share logistics info to better optimize scheduling and asset deployment, and drone inspection companies and utilities can share images and maintenance data to improve predictive maintenance and analytics technologies. But who owns the resulting innovations? Do privacy laws apply to the captured images? How can I protect my company's legal exposure and reputation? This presentation will help service providers and customers spot and address common legal issues surrounding data sharing.
Todd Basile and Tyler Thompson, Greenberg Traurig, LLP
What it Takes to Gain FAA Approval to Fly Multiple UAs BVLOS
In order to achieve cost-effective, scalable small, unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) operations, Industry is advancing towards multiple unmanned aircraft (UA) flying beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) under the control of fewer remote pilots in command (RPICs). Current regulations specify at least one RPIC per UAS (a ratio of 1:1). In the future, Industry expects to operate BVLOS flights where "m" RPICs control "N" sUAS where m is less than N (aka m:N). Anzen Unmanned has worked with Asylon to gain FAA approval for BVLOS operations over people/vehicles using their DroneSentry UAS for security patrols. This year, Anzen Unmanned, Asylon, and NUAIR worked with the FAA to develop the framework, ArduPilot software, and safety case for BVLOS m:N operations. We will share the lessons learned developing and gaining approval for BVLOS m:N operations.
Wendy Ljungren, Anzen Unmanned
Safety Management and Commercial UAV Operations: Beyond System Safety
In January 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published NPRM 2022-28583 which proposes to make safety management systems (SMS) compulsory for 14 CFR 135 operators. Commercial UAV operators will need to obtain a 135 operating certificate in order to conduct business in the national airspace system thus they will be required to implement a safety management system. The idea of safety management is relatively new in this segment as much focus has been on system safety to create reliable autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. However, while system safety focuses on the machine and software aspect of the UAS, the safety management system looks at the organization and helps to identify challenges whenever and wherever human involvement is present. The SMS is a framework for formally managing risk in the organization through proactive hazard identification, organization systems monitoring, and process evaluation. Additionally, SMS is a leader-driven approach to bringing risk under organizational control through sound policy, training, and top-down communication. In this presentation, we will discuss the FAA proposal and how it will impact commercial UAV operations. Furthermore, we will provide an overview of the four component, twelve element SMS framework and how the interdependent functions in the SMS work together to control risk in the organization. Finally, we will discuss SMS implementation and the importance of scaling to your organization.
Jason Starke, Baldwin Safety and Compliance
After Takeoff: Drone Data Details
Why is it critically important that you take ownership of all your sensor data? How can you best manage the data to maintain a chain of evidence? What role does data play in building success for your drone company? How will you connect to an existing data processing platform? Can cloud-based applications interact with and federate your enterprise spatial data across the organization?
Session moderated by Stephen Sutton, Flyby Guys
Solutions Engineering – Defining a Complete Drone Solution
My daily task at Volatus Aerospace is to bring solutions to customers who have complex needs. Listening, Digesting and often translating needs and desires into reality. 1. What is the desired data to be collected, the drone is only exists for the data. 2. What is the desired sensor to collect that data. 3. How will you submit and process that data. 4. How will you connect to the data processing platform. 5. Is there the regulatory platform for you to achieve the desired collection process. 6. As so it continues….. The very last question – What drone do I hang the sensor on! Often this approach is reversed and the end result will suffer. Join Dean on a Rollercoaster of a reality check on what can and cannot be achieved with Drones and how sometimes the answer is very different to what you first thought.
Dean Attridge, Volatus Aerospace
Drone Data Portals
Many companies are offering drone data portals to host your ever-growing image and sensor data archive. In this talk we will discuss why this is one aspect of your emerging drone operations that should not be outsourced. We will discuss, why it is critically important that you take ownership of all your sensor data, how best to manage the data, maintain a chain of evidence, and how to handle retention and cold storage options. Conversely, we will discuss the pitfalls of outsourcing this fundamental aspect of drone operations and the potential ramifications of doing so in a quickly evolving industry vertical ripe for acquisitions and startup failures.
Kenneth Kranz, Cognizant Technology Solutions
Data Unmanagement – If You Have to Decide Where the Data Goes, You Have Already Lost
At a time when the number of sensors and methods for data capture continues to grow, organizations struggle to manage these ever-increasing data streams and miss opportunities to extract additional value from the data they collect. Many organizations share their spatial data on network drives but often give up before locating the data they need. Solutions exist today that can leverage the "geospatial" in the data to automatically organize and store this data and reduce the management burden across the organization. To ensure organizations maximize the value they get from the data they collect, new and modern systems are needed that are: Constructed from the ground up for "big data", Capable of visualizing and managing a myriad of data types, Leveraging the latest in AI to deliver new and exciting answers to complex customer problems Cloud-based applications now exist to interact with and federate your enterprise spatial data across the organization. Taking advantage of them will ensure companies are getting the most value from the data they collect.
Matt Sheehan, NV5 Geospatial
