GOING BEYONDVISUAL LINE OF SIGHT(BVLOS)

“Beyond visual line of sight” (BVLOS) is the most talked about concept in the commercial drone world today, and for good reason. Many of the most lucrative opportunities for introducing drones into real-world commercial use are based upon inspecting and gathering data over large swaths of land like railroads, utility lines, and farms - that require autonomy.

There are two key factors that make BVLOS flight a tipping point for commercial drone industry expansion. The first is enabling service providers to conduct complex drone operations such as long-line transmission inspection without having to have the drone in sight. This makes these tools much more viable to replace helicopters or other methods of current inspection, and opens up serious opportunities for introducing safer inspection operations into the world.

The second is enabling drones to be able to conduct truly unmanned flight with no pilot needed for takeoff or landing. This has happened already in Europe, with power company Enel using the drone-in-a-box system Percepto for power plant inspection related to operations, maintenance, and protection. Cutting the human out of the loop allows for additional use cases, and drives the cost of data acquisition way down, making use cases in low-margin industries much more likely.

Right now in the US, companies are operating under waivers for BVLOS, and there are several initiatives looking at the safe autonomous applications of commercial drones and operation with ground support from longer distances that line of sight. The investor interest in this space, and the corporate eyes in energy, agriculture, banking, and more keeping watch around regulatory timing, is at a peak.

We’ve produced this ebook to walk through barriers to manufacturing adoption from a regulatory standpoint, to showcase companies we believe have opportunity in the fixed-wing VTOL space, and to shed some light on key concepts we think everyone should know.

We’ve paired this written analysis with a series of Guinn Partner analysis videos you can find linked at the end of this document.

INTRODUCTION

BVLOS is the next step in the future of drone operations and autonomy, but drones have to become “airworthy” to get there. In this report, we break down the technical and regulatory requirements that must be addressed and to summarize what is known and what is still unclear.

In order to make a drone ready for BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) operation, several technical and legal requirements have to be addressed. The primary concern for manufacturers and pilots of BVLOS systems will be meeting the dynamic regulatory requirements for “airworthiness” put forth by the FAA. Related to this FAA compliance, BVLOS-ready systems require robust “detect-and-avoid technology” for safety as well as long range reliable and redundant communications technology. We review all three of these major requirements for implementing BVLOS systems below.

BEYONDVISUALLINE OFSIGHT

The FAA’s charter is to regulate civil aviation and generally promote safety. Its certifications extend to both manned and unmanned aircraft. “Airworthiness” is the FAA’s designation for individual aircraft that it deems safe to fly. In 14 CFR 3.5, FAA spells this out as: “the aircraft conforms to its type design and is in a condition for safe operation”. In other words, the FAA aims to recognize different types of aviation technologies and implement detailed regulatory requirements that show individual craft match the “type designs” it has already certified. A Boeing 747, for example, has to meet different requirements than a DJI Mavic, but both need to demonstrate precise and consistent implementation of their respective design plans with the exception that the Mavic does not have a “type design” at this time.

AIRWORTHINESS

As defined in 14 CFR 91.203 and 14 CFR 91.7, airworthiness refers to both the official certification given to an aircraft and the aircraft condition which has to be maintained for safe flight. The Airworthiness Certificate gives authorization to fly an aircraft. However, paper certification alone is not enough, and broken aircraft are obviously not cleared to fly by the FAA.

There are exceptions to these certificates. Through Part 107, the FAA has waived the need of Airworthiness Certificates for low-risk category aircraft. This has allowed commercial drones to enter the National Airspace (NAS) without needing to pass rigorous airworthiness criteria. However, these low-risk aircraft are limited to low-altitude, short-distance flights in less populated areas and cannot be flown over people or properties without consent. They also require a human observer within line of sight at all times while airborne. While there are waivers for Part 107 to perform slightly higher-risk operations, BVLOS flight will almost always require FAA certification, unless you are flying in testing facilities or remote locations like the desert.

FAA ENFORCEMENT

Beyond the Airworthiness Certificate, the FAA provides two other certifications which are important to manufacturers of UAVs. The Type Certificate certifies that the design of the aircraft is up to par with safety standards and provides specific technical and design requirements about the class of aircraft. The Airworthiness Certificate by contrast shows that the individual aircraft fit this approved type design.

Manufacturers will also want a Production Certificate. Given that the manufacturer already holds a Type Certificate, the Production Certificate certifies that the manufacturer can consistently produce airworthy aircraft and authorizes the production of the aircraft at scale. The Production Certificate allows manufacturers to automatically receive Airworthiness Certificates for every individual aircraft (of the certified type) that they manufacture.

TYPE CERTIFICATES& PRODUCTION CERTIFICATES

These standards for airworthiness have been based in the last century of manned aviation. Balloons, single engine planes, rotorcraft, jets, and helicopters have all passed through these regulations as types. However, type standards for unmanned civilian aircraft do not yet exist and do not fit into other type standards for these other aerial technologies. The FAA is now faced with a difficult problem of creating a new regulatory framework for assessing UAV airworthiness as its own type. Though many in both industry and government are eager for new regulations to be passed and to be rid of complex exemption processes, these new frameworks require years of flight data and industry-regulator partnerships in order to develop standards for safe flight and type classification.

Meanwhile, manufacturers are able to get by with manned aircraft certification standards. 14 CFR 21.17(b) provides the interim solution: the FAA (and especially the Los Angeles Aircraft Certification Office) picks and chooses requirements which, though intended for manned aircraft, are “found by the FAA to be appropriate for the aircraft and applicable to a specific type design, or such airworthiness criteria as the FAA may find provide an equivalent level of safety”. For manufacturers, this process entails reviewing many (on the scale of thousands) requirements intended for manned aircraft and demonstrating that the UAV either satisfies the requirement or is categorically exempt from the requirement because of its type design. In the simplest case, a manufacturer might file an exemption that they do not need to include a flight manual on the UAV. However, it is not always this easy to dissect the regulations and determine whether or not they apply in the absence of an on-board pilot.

NEW REGULATIONS& CURRENT CHALLENGES

Both the FAA and NASA have made recent efforts to push the current framework of airworthiness forward. The FAA’s Unmanned Aerial System Integration Pilot (UAS IPP), for example, has created opportunities for state and local governments to partner with pilots and manufacturers in order to help bridge the gap between regulatory standards and industry needs. NASA’s Systems Integration and Operationalization demonstration has been another leading effort toward UAS airworthiness certifications. The “Pathfinder” program is the cutting-edge of development, where regulators partner directly with technology companies to explore the concepts that wish to refine for developing future regulatory standards. These industry-regulator partnerships are at the forefront of making BVLOS airworthiness certifications a reality.

The Path Forward for BVLOS

DETECT & AVOIDAs all manned aircraft pilots know, successful flight depends on “see and avoid”. The world outside the cockpit window receives just as much attention from the pilot as the complex instruments at the dashboard. Indeed, the FAA codifies this “see and avoid” rule in their right-of-way rules for the NAS (14 CFR 91.113). Though many of these regulations for air traffic are common sense, the language of “seeing” has presented some difficulties for UAVs. So far, UAV manufacturers have met these regulatory requirements by limiting drone operational capabilities, but other notions of “sensing” and “detection” have been gaining traction in the regulatory space.

GOING DEEPER: ”Visual Line of Sight” for UAVsIn 2016, the FAA updated their “see and avoid” right-of-way rules to include UAVs in 14 CFR 107.31 Visual line of sight aircraft operation. Section 107.31 requires that the remote pilot or visual observer knows the location, attitude, altitude and direction of the UAV and is able to observe the airspace for hazards and determine that the UAV does not endanger life or property. By avoiding any explicit lateral boundary, these rules give a way for remote pilots to “see and avoid” specific to aircraft in question, but do not provide any direction for fully-autonomous flights. The boundaries of VLOS, however, are not always clear, as demonstrated by the Precision Hawk Extended Visual Line of Sight (EVLOS) Pathfinder program. This program successfully applied for a waiver to section 107.31 and extend their lateral boundary to 2.5 NM. The FAA determined in this case that, even though the unmanned aircraft itself could not be seen at 2.5 NM, other manned aircraft could be observed at this distance. This is a tangible step toward flights outside of human vision. Going further, NASA has suggested that instead of “see and avoid”, UAVs should be held to a standard of “detect and avoid” where the UAS is able to use computers and sensors to detect nearby air traffic and safely navigate accordingly.

Detect-and-avoid systems can take a variety of different forms. The sensors might be on the aircraft itself (typically radar) or might take advantage of networks of ground-based sensors (radar coverage). Traffic management platforms can also manage UAVs so that they maintain distance from each other. A number of companies and technology solutions are emerging in this dynamic space. Still, there is some ambiguity in the FAA regulations about staying “well clear” of other aircraft. Though these regulations have not taken a finalized and polished form, it is clear that unmanned aircraft will forfeit right of way to manned systems and so detection and avoidance will be crucial systems for any UAV.

IMPLEMENTINGDETECT & AVOID

While being able to detect other aircraft outside the pilot’s line of sight is essential to drone safety, it is not the only issue raised by BVLOS. Extended-distance drone operations also communicate command and control information and other data back to the people who need it without link loss so reliability and redundancy are both essential. Several different types of communications systems can be used to communicate with BVLOS drones, and we break down the popular choices below. These systems vary in four main ways: data costs, hardwarecosts, coverage and dataspeed, and caps.

COMMUNICATIONSYSTEMS

Satellite communications (SatCom) are used but the US Military for drone operations. These systems are the most expensive, but can be used at the largest scale. SatCom is both reliable and can send large amounts of data. With SatCom, you can select a network, a modem, and a service provider based on estimated data usage and the type of connection needed for the operation. Service providers like Iridium and Inmarsat offer global coverage, low-bandwidth machine-to-machine (M2M) services and high-bandwidth services (for a much greater cost available in 2018). M2M systems are the most economical choice for SatCom, if it is possible to optimize the C2 link for minimal data transmission.

SATELLITE

Drones can also transmit data like smartphones do via cellular networks (CellCom). These systems haven’t been used for drones for as long as SatCom has, but they are gaining in popularity for commercial UAVs. CellCom performs well for multi-rotor drones in low-altitude settings as well as for BVLOS. CellCom can be better for real-time streaming than SatCom as 4G or even 3G networks are capable of much higher data rates than satellites.

The pros and cons of cellular networks both lie in the fact that they are an already-existing infrastructure. Because of this they are not optimized for the ways drones use data. Drones using CellCom technology will be uploading large quantities of data using a system that is primarily designed for downloading media. Additionally, many of the places in which drones can be flown also won’t be high-volume cell service areas. Though CellCom for UAVs uses the same service providers that cell phone users do, UAV operators in remote areas can also take advantage of “dual-radio” modems which will increase coverage by spanning service areas of multiple providers.

CELLULAR

UAVs can also transmit data using point-to-point radio links. Radio communications avoid service fees that come with other communications technologies, but upgrading to new hardware can be significantly more expensive. Radios will work independent of weather or network coverage, and the equipment for operation is portable. Depending on the needs of the operation, radio antennas might fit in a suitcase or might have to be carried in the bed of a truck.

Depending on the particular use of the drone, available radio frequencies can include the Industrial, Scientific and Medical FCC bands (900Mhz, 2.4 Ghz, 5.8Ghz), or the licensedS- and L-Bands. Though communication security is a concern with any technology or protocol, it is a more specific concern with using drones on unlicensed frequencies. In addition to the risk of a malicious agent hacking a drone-control radio signal, even a local radio signal operating in a nearby frequency could cause interference problems with drones. The Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RCTA) has proposed dedicated waveforms and frequencies to solve some of these security issues, but they are still in the process of being designed and implemented. Meanwhile, unlicensed bands with upgraded radios can still deliver strong results with relatively minimal risks, and changing your radio communicating frequency later will not cost you.

RADIO

FIXED WING VTOL

The Best Solution for Long-Range BVLOS Flight

Common questions we receive at Guinn Partners include: What is VTOL? What does the acronym mean? What type of aircraft are they? Why haven’t we seen more of this type of craft in the last few years? Why is everyone so excited about them, and how do they work?

VTOL stands for Vertical Take Off and Landing. By definition really any quadcopter or “drone” by DJI or similar to date is technically a VTOL drone because they vertically take off and vertically land, meaning they don’t need a runway. So the concept by definition isn’t particularly special, but what is special is for a fixed-wing aircraft that can also vertically take-off and land, sometimes referred to as a “hybrid” from the first use of the technology - takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. When you hear the term VTOL referred to in the modern commercial drone industry, it’s safe to assume the speaker means a fixed-wing VTOL because they are shortening that term.

Helicopters and multirotors are actually not very efficient at flying, because they are using a significant amount of thrust to hover. This is why a multi-rotor has less battery life if it’s just hovering still versus flying forward at high speed. But even when a multirotor is flying forward at a consistent speed, it is still mainly relying on downward thrust to keep itself in the air which is incredibly inefficient. There is a small amount of wing effect from the rotor disc flying through the air, which is why multi-rotors get a little bit more flight time when they’re in motion as opposed to hovering.

Most VTOLs (as the industry uses the term) are fixed wing aircraft that use a multi-rotor style propeller setup to be able to take off vertically and then transition into forward flight. What you’ll generally see is 4-6 rotors that lift the drone up into the air, with one pusher prop in the back so as it starts to transition into forward flight the wings can start giving the aircraft lift. The lift from the wings means the drone needs less and less downward thrust from the rotors that lifted it off the ground. Then the pusher prop comes on and the drone will turn off the lifting props, and now with the single pusher prop the drone can fly as a very efficient airplane with the aerodynamics of an airplane wing. These aerodynamics means it can get significantly faster flight speed and much longer range as a fixed wing than it can as a multi-rotor.

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANTTO DESIGN AND/OR USE A FIXED-WING VTOL

For years there has always been a conundrum in drone development where an engineering team will say “Well, if you need really long flight time and long endurance we need a fixed wing craft”, and the results are all these drone systems over the years that would be launched with a catapult system, rubber bands, or hand thrown. These systems were a big hassle to launch, and even more of a hassle to land, because you would need a long runway, which isn’t practical. There are very few places that actually have a nice long runway for an autopilot on a fixed wing drone to come down from the air and land itself. This logistical challenge led to massive net systems and wild apparatus to try and catch these sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollar drones out of the air. Fixed wing drones were never particularly practical.

HOW DID THESE SYSTEMS COME ABOUT?

Drone developers eventually wanted to combine the benefits of vertical takeoff and landing that you find in multi-rotors and helicopters with the longer flight time and endurance of fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicles. Now we have fixed-wing VTOL where these two things are built together. One thing Chris Anderson from 3DR has said many times is that these drones were kind of like a spork for a really long time, where you get a not-very-good spoon and a not-very-good fork. The reason this was so hard was because the flight code had to be very high quality, and the speed controllers and the motors had to be very accurate. Why? Imagine first taking off with just a multi-rotor drone with no wings, and it’s taking off in 15 mph winds and it may be getting blown around but it’s able to stabilize itself fairly well in wind. Now add to that multirotor some big planks for wings. Now as you take off you have 15 mph winds hitting these big wings, then the multi-rotor with its propellers will have a really hard time stabilizing those wings in the wind. This is a big development and technology component challenge.

Then the next difficult parts, especially from a flight code perspective, is trying to transition into forward flight. Transitioning from an autopilot flight code stabilizing a fixed-wing into an autopilot that’s flying a multi-rotor and vice versa involves two totally different types of flight code. Making that transition in real time without letting the aircraft flip over, lose control, or crash was a very difficult thing to figure out. There are whole teams of open source and corporate engineers working on this code, and lots of interesting designs created to try and circumvent many of the challenges of transition.

HOW DID THESE SYSTEMS COME ABOUT? Continued

THE PRACTICAL IMPACT

Now for the first time we’re starting to see, affordable, reliable solutions of various types in this space that are able to make this work. This opens up a lot of operational possibility for commercial drones. Today, if you want to use drones for inspecting a large mine or a long transmission line or railroad using multi-rotors they mainly just hover very inefficiently even when they are flying forward and are thus not able to cover that much ground with one flight. With a fixed wing VTOL, you can cover a lot of railroad or capture a much larger mine or farm and have the added benefit of being able to take off and land in a small defined area like a multi-rotor, which gives users the best of both worlds. As people are trying to cover larger areas with mapping missions and as companies are preparing for logistics, delivery, longer range operations, surveillance operations up and down borders, and really the majority of beyond visual line of sight operations, it often makes sense to be using a fixed wing aircraft because you get 4-5 times the flight time of a multi-rotor.

FIXED WING VTOL COMPANIES TO WATCH

AEROVELUnited States

ATMOS UAVNetherlands

CARBONIXAustralia

DRONETECH UAVUnited States

ALTISouth Africa

BIRDSEYE VIEW AEROBOTICSUnited States

COLUGO SYSTEMSIsrael

ELROY AIRUnited States

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FIXED WING VTOL COMPANIES TO WATCH

HEUROBOTICSUnited States

SKYXCanada

WINGCOPTERGermany

GERMANDRONESGermany

QUANTUM SYSTEMSGermany

VERTICAL TECHNOLOGIESNetherlands

WINGTRASwitzerland

RAPTOR UASUK

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DRONE-IN-A-BOXCOMPANIES TO WATCH

PERCEPTOFocus: Security,

Safety & Inspection

AMERICAN ROBOTICSFocus: Agriculture

AIROBOTICSFocus: Inspection,

Asset Management, Security

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CONCEPTS& PROGRAMSTO KNOW

WAIVER: XCEL

So far, of the more than a thousand submitted waivers to the FAA for BVLOS, 99% have been denied. Many who have been accepted reference visual observers.

Xcel Energy was granted permission from the FAA in early 2018 to conduct regular drone operations beyond visual line of sight in Denver. Xcel Energy is Colorado’s largest utility company, and their drone operations conduct routine inspections of electronic transmission lines.

An important note to their waiver is the mention of “semi-autonomous” equipment and not having a reliance on a visual observer.

The FAA’s Pathfinder Initiative was implemented to give companies in industry the ability to test and develop best practices around BVLOS drone operations while researching the safety implications of flying a drone outside of a pilot’s direct vision. BNSF Railways, CNN, and PrecisionHawk were the three companies selected to participate in the Pathfinder program.

Localized BVLOS is an operation in which the drone operates outside the visual line of sight limit defined in Part 107, but still within a defined local area. The definition of “local” is not necessarily given by a strict distance limit, and thus the term “localized BVLOS” can describes many common commercial drone operations that are being considered for BVLOS, such as agricultural farm plots, mines, construction sites, swaths of rail etc.

PATHFINDERINITIATIVE

LOCALIZEDBVOLS

RISKASSESSMENTSOne of the recommendations presented out of the Pathfinder Initiative was that all BVLOS flights should involve a thorough risk assessment. This assessment is not an established regulation, but should be considered as a likely requirement and a necessary best practice. A comprehensive assessment should speak to the following points:

What functionality must the assistive technology be capable of to enable safe BVLOS operations in the National Airspace System?

How do we expect operators to engage with the assistive technology?

In what ways can this human-machine system fail?

How do we mitigate the risk of failure?

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GUINN PARTNERSVIDEO ANALYSIS

ANALYSISBVLOS - Why Is It Important?

ANALYSISPrecisionHawk & BVLOS

ANALYSISBVLOS - Key Enabling Technologies

THE AUTHORS

Colin Guinn is a product development expert and serial entrepreneur. He most recently founded Austin startup Hangar, after serving as Chief Revenue Officer at 3D Robotics and co-founding and serving as CEO of DJI North America. He is one of the most interviewed experts on robotics technology in the world, and has been featured at premier industry conferences and in countless top-rated publications and newscasts, including 60 Minutes, Techcrunch, and Fast Company. Colin’s uniqueness to the business world is that he understands the technology in two dialects: the granular argot necessary to communicate with an engineer, and the simple, digestible language that’s interesting to the average consumer.

Oren Schauble is an experienced sales and marketing executive specializing in high-tech and disruptive products. He served as the VP of Sales and Marketing at Hangar Technology, after serving as Vice President of Marketing at 3D Robotics and Director of Marketing at TrackingPoint. Before this he worked agency-side as a creative director for lifestyle brands. Oren’s specialty is in building comprehensive sales and marketing programs, managing complex social media content programs, and establishing systems for companies undergoing rapid expansion.

Explore our website to learn more about how we bring products to market, our specific services in the drone market segment, and our new GP Strategic information product.

COLIN GUINN

OREN SCHAUBLE

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