Unmanned aerial systems: Status and Forthcoming challenges for Safety Risk Management

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) promises a revolution in urban transportation: for the first time ever, cities will be able to use the third dimension for their mobility needs. The traditional aviation industry and high-tech newcomers alike are making huge investments to make this - still unproven - technology a reality. Although Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have now for some time been used in segregated airspace where separation from other air traffic can be assured, potential users have interests to deploy UAS in non-segregated airspaces. Recent technological and operational improvements give reason to believe that UAS safety and performance capabilities are maturing. However, there is still the need for establishing a systematic agreement between UAS safety policies with commonly accepted UAS Safety Risk Management processes. This agreement is needed to show that the risks related to UAS operations in all the different airspace classes can be adequately controlled in a way that would not jeopardize current safety levels and safety mitigations effectiveness. This study aims to investigate the current status of UAS operations and future concepts of operations with specific interest in the management of safety risk. This manuscript aims to summarize some of regulatory aspects currently available linked to safety investigation and reporting of drone operations and consequently draw some potential lines for future research.