Introduction
The US and Europe are paving the way for the integration of
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into civil airspace. Some
commentators suggest that commercial cargo UAVs will be flying
through the skies in the next 5 years. While there is now
considerable momentum in the expansion of this industry in the
civil arena, a number of aspects must still be addressed in order
to satisfy the regulators, insurers and the general public about
the use of drones in civil airspace. It is, however, no longer a
question of "if", but "when".
The use of UAVs in a military context is well established and
documented, but their use is confined to segregated airspace.
Equally the use of small UAVs, such as for agricultural, search and
rescue or survey operations, is in low airspace and limited. The
challenge faced now is to enable UAVs to share non-segregated
airspace with other, manned, aircraft.
