Webinar: Beyond line of sight drone piloting in Australia and USA

On Thursday 30 May iMOVE held a webinar, with the full title of Perspectives on and implementation of Specific Operations Risk Assessment for remotely piloted aircraft beyond visual line of sight in Australia and the USA. The video recording of the project outcome webinar is embedded below.

About the webinar

Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) has been adopted by many countries as a standard way of gaining approvals for drone operations. This methodology classifies the risk posed by a drone flight in the specific category of operations and for the identification of mitigations and of the safety objectives.

Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations present specific challenges and there have been attempts to streamline the SORA process in Australia – with its unique geography and urbanisation patterns – to make approvals for operations easier to obtain whilst minimising risk.

Agenda

The webinar presentation is structured as follows:

• Welcome and introduction – 5 minutes
• Introduction to ASSURE – 5 minutes
• Assessing risk: A US perspective (Dr Steven Weber) – 10 minutes
• SORA in the US (Kyle Ryker) – 10 minutes
• SORA in Australia (Rowan Kimber) – 10 minutes
• Q&A – 15 minutes
• Wrap up – 5 minutes

Speakers

• Colonel (US Air Force, Retired) Stephen “Lux” Luxion – Executive Director, Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE)
• Steven Weber – Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Drexel University
• Kyle Ryker – Research Engineer, Raspet Flight Research Laboratory , Mississippi State University
• Mr Rowan Kimber –  Senior Standards Officer, RPAS Policy & Regulation Section, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA)

They cover what’s working, what isn’t, and how can we learn from each other to improve future processes and support the expanding use of drones.

Webinar video

The event was recorded, and is embedded in the video player below.

Speaker bios

Colonel (Retired) Stephen ‘Lux’ Luxion: Executive Director of ASSURE (Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence) led by Mississippi State University. Steve is responsible for leading the alliance of 23 of the world’s leading research universities and its industry partners. ASSURE is the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). ASSURE provides the FAA a wide-ranging UAS research portfolio and conducts specific research funded by the FAA to help inform and address the key challenges to safely and efficiently integrating UAS into the National Airspace System. ASSURE also has established a non-profit arm of the Alliance that leverages the ASSURE team, its expertise, experience, and knowledge to serve others outside the FAA.

Lux is a 34-year US Air Force veteran with over 2,500 hours flying time in the F-111 Aardvark, MQ-1B Predator UAV; and the F-14A Tomcat and EA-6B Prowler while on exchange with the US Navy; including 700 hours combat time in operations over Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. For his combat efforts, Colonel Luxion was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for Valor, 4 Air Metals, and 7 Aerial Achievement Medals.

Colonel Luxion received his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and commission from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1984. Colonel Luxion has commanded at the squadron, group and center levels and helped lead the establishment of NATO’s first Aerospace Center of Excellence. Colonel Luxion retired from the US Air Force in 2014 from his last assignment at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Daytona Beach where he commanded the Reserve Officers Training Program.

Colonel Luxion is a distinguished graduate of both the USAF Fighter Weapons School and Air Command and Staff College. He is also a graduate of four Master Degree programs from Embry-Riddle, the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, and the National War College.

Rowan Kimber: Senior Standards Officer within the RPAS Policy and Regulation team at the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. In this role, Rowan collaborates with internal and external stakeholders to develop policy and implement regulatory changes related to uncrewed aircraft operations in Australia. A significant aspect of Rowan’s responsibilities is his work with JARUS, where Rowan represents Australia on the Safety and Risk Management Working Group, the group responsible for developing the SORA risk methodology. Before joining CASA, Rowan had various roles within the aviation sector, including being a commercial pilot and instructor in crewed and uncrewed aircraft, an aviation regulatory and operations consultant, and a lawyer, specialising in aviation regulation and commercial law.

Kyle Ryker: Serves as a Research Engineer and technical lead for Mississippi State University’s Raspet Flight Research Laboratory. Kyle currently leads the execution of several federally and commercially sponsored projects related to advanced UAS operations for Group 1 through 5 UAS. This entails the development of complex safety cases unique to each operation, spanning electrical infrastructure inspection to search and rescue over water. Currently, Kyle serves as Principal Investigator for multiple research efforts focused on enabling industry’s integration of Beyond-Visual-Line-Of-Sight UAS applications through the FAA’s Center of Excellence, ASSURE. Outside of academics, Kyle serves as Co-Chair for ASTM International’s DAA Test Methods working group, tackling the final regulatory obstacles industry is facing before full integration with the National Airspace System.

Dr. Steven Weber: Vice Provost of Undergraduate Curriculum and Education at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. He is also Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in the College of Engineering and served as the ECE Department Head 2017-2022. His areas of research expertise include: i) mathematical modeling and analysis of wireless and wired communication networks; ii) cybersecurity (focused on statistical anomaly detection, wireless jamming, and data de/re-identification); and iii) probabilistic risk assessment (focused on unmanned aerial systems).

His research has been published in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, and the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, among others. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Army CERDEC, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Department of Education, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), among others.

He has served as an Associate Editor for both the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking and the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, as Technical Program Chair for several conferences and workshops, as well as a Technical Program Chair Committee Member for numerous conferences and workshops. He has served as advisor or co-advisor for eleven Ph.D. students. He received his B.S. from Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI) in 1996 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX) in 1999 and 2003, respectively.

About ASSURE

ASSURE is comprised of 29 of the world’s leading research institutions and more than a hundred leading industry and government partners. ASSURE members are core to four FAA UAS test sites, lead four FAA research centers, and have a multitude of UAS ranging from small drones below 55 pounds to the largest UAS at any US academic institution at 1800 pounds. This alliance features expertise across a broad spectrum of research areas, including: Air traffic control interoperability, UAS airport ground operations, control and communications, detect and avoid, human factors, UAS noise reduction, UAS wake signatures, unmanned aircraft pilot training and certification, low altitude operations safety, spectrum management and UAS traffic management. ASSURE possesses the expertise, experience and influence that the FAA Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems demands.

About CASA

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is a government body that ensures the safety of aviation in Australia. CASA licenses pilots, register aircraft, certify aerodromes, oversee aviation safety and promote safety awareness. This is done by setting standards and safety outcomes that cover maintenance, airspace, aerodromes, licensing, and all types of operations. CASA also ensures that the aviation community and the public use and administer Australian airspace and aerodromes safely. In July 1995, CASA was established as an independent statutory authority. We operate within a legislative framework made up of acts, regulations, associated legislative instruments and guidance material.

iMOVE’s drone projects

• Prototype Uncrewed Air System delivery aircraft development
• Validating the benefits of increased drone uptake for Australia
• Integrating drones into NT Health
• Hybrid drone/truck last mile delivery planning for e-groceries
• An empirical analysis of drone ecosystems in 4PL logistics
• Fixed-wing drones and small package delivery