“UK CAA publishes new safety insights to guide future eVTOL regulation”

The UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) has col­lab­o­rat­ed with experts from WMG, Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick on new research to assess how future eVTOL air­craft can be safe­ly inte­grat­ed into UK skies, reports a press release.

The release explains, “The 18-month study, fund­ed by the Depart­ment for Trans­port, forms part of the regulator’s Future of Flight pro­gram. The New research has used ‘Sys­tems Think­ing’ to assessed the safe­ty of future eVTOL air­craft oper­a­tions in UK air­space. It is a way of under­stand­ing how dif­fer­ent parts of a whole sys­tem inter­act and influ­ence each oth­er, rather than focus­ing on indi­vid­ual ele­ments in iso­la­tion.”  

It con­tin­ues, “The work includes research at the British Grand Prix at Sil­ver­stone where there is a high vol­ume of heli­copter and poten­tial eVTOL oper­a­tions. It con­tributes to the devel­op­ment of reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works to sup­port the safe inte­gra­tion of nov­el avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies, such as eVTOL air­craft. It high­lights key areas for reg­u­la­to­ry advance­ment, includ­ing air­space inte­gra­tion, ver­ti­port oper­a­tions and automa­tion.”

Rick New­son, Co-Chair of the eVTOL Safe­ty Lead­er­ship Group, at the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, com­ment­ed, “With eVTOL air­craft expect­ed to enter UK air­space with­in the next few years, proac­tive plan­ning and coor­di­na­tion is essen­tial to ensure their safe, respon­si­ble and seam­less inte­gra­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “This research pro­vides valu­able insights into the com­plex chal­lenges and poten­tial risks ahead. The results will feed into our ongo­ing reg­u­la­to­ry devel­op­ment to enable inno­va­tion while main­tain­ing the high­est safe­ty stan­dards.”

The project aimed to iden­ti­fy poten­tial haz­ards and safe­ty gaps asso­ci­at­ed with eVTOL oper­a­tions, analysing inter­ac­tions between air­craft, soft­ware, hard­ware and humans.

It was deliv­ered in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with indus­try through the UK’s eVTOL Safe­ty Lead­er­ship Group (eVSLG). Using work­shops and tech­ni­cal meet­ings, a wide range of stake­hold­ers, such as Bris­tow and NATS, con­tributed oper­a­tional exper­tise that shaped the safe­ty analy­sis and ensured the find­ings reflect rel­e­vant real-world chal­lenges.

Pro­fes­sor Sid­dartha Khast­gir, Head of Safe Auton­o­my at WMG, Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick, remarked,  “For any tech­nol­o­gy, ensur­ing its safe­ty is an absolute require­ment for it to suc­ceed com­mer­cial­ly. And for emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies like eVTOLs, a sys­tems think­ing approach to safe­ty is nec­es­sary to under­stand the mul­ti­ple inter­ac­tions between the stake­hold­ers.” 

The research iden­ti­fies risks that may arise from the future inte­gra­tion of eVTOLs into an already com­plex air­space sys­tem. The study iden­ti­fies over 50 high-pri­or­i­ty areas, many of which are applic­a­ble to both eVTOL and heli­copter oper­a­tions. 

Pro­fes­sor Sid­dartha Khast­gir

Some of the key out­puts of the report include:-

: Air­space inte­gra­tion chal­lenges - Air Nav­i­ga­tion Ser­vice Providers should imple­ment mech­a­nisms to detect and alert controllers/service providers to devi­a­tions in air­craft per­for­mance (e.g., alti­tude, speed, tra­jec­to­ry) from expect­ed para­me­ters.

: Ver­ti­port oper­a­tional stan­dards - The crit­i­cal­i­ty of ener­gy man­age­ment requires Ground Ser­vices to use advanced real-time sen­sors to ensure pro­vi­sion of con­tin­u­ous feed­back on land­ing con­di­tions.

: Automa­tion and sim­u­la­tion over­sight - There are cur­rent­ly no man­dat­ed pro­to­cols for using automa­tion and sim­u­la­tion tools to detect per­for­mance devi­a­tions or pre­dict flight path con­flicts.

Simon Meakins, Co-Chair of the eVTOL Safe­ty Lead­er­ship Group and Direc­tor of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty at Bris­tow Group, stat­ed, “This is an extreme­ly valu­able piece of work which proac­tive­ly iden­ti­fies poten­tial risks and enables them to be mit­i­gat­ed effec­tive­ly. With the emer­gence of new tech­nolo­gies, it is essen­tial to prag­mat­i­cal­ly man­age safe­ty from the start, and this project is an impor­tant part of that process.”

These find­ings are now being con­sid­ered by the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty as part of its ongo­ing reg­u­la­to­ry devel­op­ment work. Find­ings will also feed into the Air­space Mod­erni­sa­tion Strat­e­gy, to allow for new air­space users as new tech­nol­o­gy takes flight. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.caa.co.uk

(Top image: CAA)

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