Unmanned Aircraft for Transportation in Low-Level Altitudes: A Systems Perspective on Design and Operation

Abstract

Using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for transportation is an increasingly widespread concept. However, the majority of UAS only carry payloads of a few kilograms. This payload limitation will change in the future. New regulatory approaches facilitate the use of larger UAS with significantly increased payload capacities by incorporating the operational risks during certification. To assess the risk, the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) can be used, which defines a method that incorporates all safety affecting factors holistically. However, so far these factors ranging from automation or autonomy, aircraft configurations and design, airspace infrastructure and integration, certification and assurance, to the economics of potential use-cases have been studied in literature independently. The reason for this separation is the complexity of such holistic analysis of the aircraft system and operation. To overcome this complexity, this chapter identifies four segments of particularly strong interdependencies. This segmentation allows to map the air and ground risk classes of the SORA to the different system and operational components. At the same time, it supports balancing the level of autonomy with the reliability of required external services. Furthermore, it allows to study and adjust potential usecases with the resulting system and operational requirements. The segmentation is discussed in detail based on the results of the research project Automated Low Altitude Air Delivery (ALAADy). The project conceptually studied transport UAS with payload capacities of up to one metric ton. Several technology demonstrations and flight experiments are included within this project. The following sections present a comprehensive view of the project’s results and conclude four years of research on unmanned aerial transport at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).