From police drones to Amazon deliveries: Latest CAA sandbox projects offer a glimpse of an integrated future

Last week the CAA announced the latest round of ‘BVLOS Sandbox’ projects, all chosen to help push us one step closer to realising routine drone operations in the UK.

Being able to fly BVLOS – beyond visual line of sight – is an absolutely vital component if the full potential of drones is to be realised. Of course, to do that we need to ensure it can be done safely and fairly alongside existing airspace users. That’s both a technological and regulatory challenge and one that these sandbox trials are all designed to help solve.

The CAA has selected the following projects:

• Amazon Prime Air – consumer drone deliveries
• Airspection – inspecting offshore windfarms
• National Police Air Service; (NPAS) – exploring drone use in policing
• NATS – our own project involving BVLOS inspections over the North Sea
• Project SATE; (Sustainable Aviation Test Environment) – flights to Orkney
• Project Lifeline – medical deliveries

Unsurprisingly, it was the Amazon project that stole the headlines, but each trial is testing a different use case and will offer a glimpse of how drones might impact our lives and the services we use and rely on.

As well as leading our own project over the North Sea, we’re pleased to be supporting most of the others with airspace management and safety assurance work. Enabling drones to routinely fly beyond visual line of sight will require an airspace that is fully integrated, with safe and equitable access to all users, and we’re developing the technologies and procedures to allow just that.

The project NATS Services is leading will see us continue to work with the drone operator, Flylogix to conduct commercial emission testing flights out to North Sea oil and gas rigs. That’s something we’ve been supporting them with for some time, but what we want to test now is the use of a Temporary Reserved Area and a drone flight plan approval service.

Up until now, any BVLOS operations in the UK have usually been conducted in what’s called a Temporary Danger Area. This sterilises that piece of airspace for the duration of the drone flight (if not longer), blocking it off from other users and as a result is far from ideal. Yes, it keeps things safe, but is not a scalable or long-term solution that will allow for true integration of drones into our skies.

A Temporary Reserve Area will allow the Flylogix drone to operate safely and for NATS to keep the airspace open to other users by providing digital airspace services. This will take simulations like those we developed for Project Caelus and Project AMEC into the real world, with drones operating in the airspace alongside other types of traffic.

This will represent another milestone towards an integrated airspace in the UK and achieving routine BVLOS operations, but more importantly it will be a step towards unlocking and realising the many exciting, innovative and potentially lifesaving ways drones could benefit our lives.