Despite the prospects for unmanned aerial vehicles, the topic is, with few exceptions, stagnating in our country, writes Digitalk. The problem is regulatory uncertainty, says Stefan Hristozov of Unmanned Systems Bulgaria. The official portal of the SESAR initiative, for example, shows that our country is among the few for which no developments or plans for future projects have been reported.
SESAR (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research and Development) is a programme to modernise air traffic management in Europe. It is to be implemented as a public-private partnership.
Probably for most of the uninitiated, drones are toys for taking videos and photos, or war machines developed in a considerable number of countries. In fact, however, the greatest potential of unmanned aviation lies in services, which are expected to benefit businesses from the most diverse sectors in the future. Going forward, according to a 2016 SESAR forecast, the drone market in Europe is expected to reach €10 billion in 2035, while the value of related services will account for around half of this amount.
Regulatory vacuum leads to lack of investment
“A lot of users, such as photographers and hobbyists, knowing about the difficult control, bought machines and fly,” explains Hristozov. “But if a farmer wants to start spraying or inspecting his crops, he has to make a more serious investment and he won’t get away with the inspection.”
The vacuum in the field in our country is holding back business, which, one might say, is holding back the development of potential providers of such services. According to Hristozov, the reason lies in the inaction of local authorities, while the relevant regulations have already been adopted in the EU.
It is probably worth adding here that in future the use of drones is to be divided into three categories:
- Unrestricted – for small machines in low risk areas with certain restrictions where virtually anyone can be an operator. It could be said that this is where the majority of hobbyists mentioned above fall.
- Specific – here things will go through a request to the CAA (Directorate General Civil Aviation Administration). This is expected to be the busiest category in which, for example, unmanned agricultural aviation falls.
- Certified – the manned aviation regulations apply here. This category includes unmanned systems with the highest risk, it is expected that future providers of specialized drone services will be predominantly in it.
Demand and interest is a fact
“People here ask and are interested,” Hristozov continues. “In their professional groups, information goes around, it is clear what their colleagues around the world are doing. But even if someone has taken a machine and is doing something with it, they prefer not to announce it.”
Surely the business interest is not just curiosity, but a consequence of real experience in other countries. In an interview with Digitalk.bg in the autumn of 2021, prof. Dimo Zafirov, a member of the Institute for Space Research and Technology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IKIT-BAS), shared several examples in this field.
In Japan, he said, about 70% of agrochemical processing is now done by drones. Also by law 20% of the cadastre must be updated every year. This could be considerably cheaper if done using drones instead of aircraft.
According to Hristozov, one of the first operators of the BLS will probably be courier companies. The deployment of such systems will allow them to deliver a large part of small parcels within the same hour. He said such deliveries would also be safer.
Transporting people with drones is not fiction
Urban air mobility is another area of interest across Europe. In this regard, it will be interesting to note that Plovdiv is among the cities signing the UIC2 manifesto at the end of 2020. According to its text, cities “see the opportunities of urban air mobility services characterised by very low altitude air traffic with zero emission air vehicles (e.g. drones and air taxis)”. The development of the topic under the hills, judging by the silence, has apparently begun and ended with the signature in question.
With the manifesto in question, the signatories ask for recognition of the role of cities and regions in the multi-level governance of U-Space. This project foresees the creation of a cloud-based system for drone traffic management – this is exactly the direction in which the startup Unmanned Systems Bulgaria is working. According to Hristozov, its main users are expected to be BLS operators – from farmers to parcel suppliers to future air taxis. However, the real users of this system will be the customers behind the providers, such as insurers, municipalities, security structures, etc. The strategy is a phased development of the system’s capabilities and complexity and customer acquisition.
“Similar systems are being deployed in the US and Europe,” he points out. “Google Wing does 400 flights every day in Australia, and 100 are done over Helsinki in Finland. The technical challenges are many in number, but are surmountable as we work on them in stages. While there’s not much room for creativity, because we’re still talking about an aviation system, this is about a complete paradigm shift in flight service by relying on a cloud service.”
Traffic management system
The aforementioned U-Space is a drone traffic management system. This name has been adopted in Europe, while the rest of the world uses names such as Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) or Drone Traffic Management (DTM). Unmanned Systems Bulgaria does not hide its ambition to become a provider of such a service.
According to Hristozov, the business model of such an operator can be likened to that of a telecommunications company. “We cannot develop such a system on our own and have contracted with technology providers.”
One of the topics in discussions with the CAA is how to divide the airspace. In Hristozov’s words, it is right that the airports are under the management of the State Enterprise “Air Traffic Control” (SE ATC). “However, over crops and forest areas, traffic can safely monitor it and we can too.”
“Unmanned Systems Bulgaria” is confident that the space above cities can be regulated in such a way. In his words, in the mentioned Plovdiv, for example, they are ready to play out a scenario of an “air corridor” over the river. Maritza – for example for the transport of shipments such as medical samples, vaccines, etc. between hospitals in the city.
“This is something that sooner or later will be a fact in our lives,” Hristozov concludes. “The easing of procedures for drone flights, and the ability for anyone to monitor this traffic will lead to greater continuity in society towards such services. Once demonstrated, this system will quickly be adopted by corporate farmers and shipment providers and traffic will grow exponentially.”