Page 11 - World Airnews Magazine October Edition 2020

DRONES

above is still some way off, a number of off-loading. A part-scale prototype is

projects are currently underway utilising currently in development.
unmanned technologies aimed at revolu- • Zipline: And on the lower end of the
tionising the aviation world. The following scale, Zipline is a California-based

is a small selection of the many illustrative drone delivery company specialising
examples: in the development of drones (and
• Airbus Autonomous Flight Projects: provisioning of related services) for
When it comes to serious players in the delivery of medical supplies. In
the aerospace industry, it doesn’t get contrast to the concepts for future

much bigger or more serious than one large unmanned cargo aircraft, Zipline

of the two principle manufacturers is currently fully operational – in at
of large passenger aircraft. Airbus is least one country. In May 2019 it was

currently conducting a series of auton- determined that more than 65% of

omous flight projects. Although these blood deliveries in Rwanda utilised
are generally aimed at reducing oper- Zipline drones. Similar services are

ating costs of airlines and improving also operating in Ghana, supplying

flight safety, at this point still retaining 2500 Healthcare Facilities with medical

crews in the cockpit, their long-term services. The Federal Aviation Admin-

vision towards fully autonomous istration (FAA) granted special Part 107

aircraft is obvious. For example, their waivers to allow Zipline (in partnership

Autonomous Taxi, Take-Off & Landing with Novant Health) to deliver medical

(ATTOL) project, which was launched supplies and PPE to medical facilities
in 2018, demonstrated a series of fully in North Carolina during the COVID-19

automatic vision-based take-offs in pandemic.

January 2020 with a modified A350 air-

craft. This technology is significant in ranges up to 4000 km and at flight OBSTACLES

that it does not utilise any ground aids, speeds of up to 850 km/h. Take-off • Technology: There are several reasons

but rather on-board image recognition and landing would be via conventional why we don’t see even faster uptake

technology, similar to how a human runways at existing airports. In other of unmanned aviation services. Some

pilot would fly the aircraft in visual words, this proposed unmanned air- may find it surprising, but the tech-

flight conditions. That milestone was craft is envisaged to share airspace and nology itself is actually not a major

soon followed in June 2020 by a fully airport facilities with existing manned bottleneck or hurdle in this regard.

automated taxi and landing, thereby aviation, and it is only one example of Military applications of unmanned

demonstrating, along with existing many similar ongoing projects. aircraft have advanced the technolo-

autopilot systems, the capability to gy to the point that such operations

perform an entire flight without pilot • Natilus Blended Wing Body Freight- have become very reliable – almost
intervention. In fact, as stated by the er UAV: There are also many private approaching the reliability of manned

Airbus Chief Technology Officer, Grazia ventures looking into the potential of operations. Full automation along a

Vittadini, “The biggest difficulty in unmanned cargo aircraft. For example, pre-programmed flight path, including

this was convincing pilots to not do Natilus (a California start-up) is in the automatic take-off and landing, has

anything and keep their hands off the process of developing a number of become a standard feature of many

throttle”. UAVs to ship large volumes of air cargo new designs. Both large airframes and

• Russian Cargo Aircraft Project: over long distances. Initial plans would many of the smaller consumer drones

utilise smaller prototypes, scaling up

Whereas the Airbus project is aimed at to a large Blended Wing Body (BWB) are entirely capable of this level of

developing new systems, other aircraft design capable of transporting 120 automation and considerably more,

developers and research agencies tons of cargo on trans-Pacific routes. although regulatory requirements

are already looking at the next logical The plan is to have the aircraft operate mean they must still be monitored by

step - developing cargo aircraft that from maritime ports, where it would a human when operated in this way.

are designed from the onset to have be towed out to sea for take-off, then For many years, one of the major

no on-board human crews, and only fly below passenger air traffic routes technological challenges of operating

ground-based support personnel for to the destination and land in the unmanned aircraft was the so-called

loading and unloading of cargo. One sea before being towed to a port for sense-and-avoid (S&A) challenge. This
such example is a research is the requirement that a vehicle must

project at Russia’s Central be able to detect a potential colli-

Aero- and Hydrodynamic sion – be it with another aircraft,

Institute (TsAGI) where they a static obstacle or terrain – and

are developing a concept for take appropriate action to avoid
what has been dubbed the the collision. Larger military

Light High-speed Transport UAVs operating in controlled

Aircraft. The concept air- airspace benefit from the same

craft is envisaged to be fully aids as manned aircraft, includ-

unmanned with a forward ing Air Traffic Control services
loading hatch where the (relayed to a UAV operator on
cockpit would normally be, the ground), TCAS, Transponders,
to facilitate loading and un- ADS-B, etc, while the “avoid-

loading of containerized car- ance” actions are usually applied
go and pallets. The design manually by the operator on the
performance goals will see ground. For smaller vehicles that
the aircraft carrying approx- operate in uncontrolled airspace,

imately 6 tons of cargo over the challenge is, perhaps sur-
World Airnews | October 2020
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