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U-space (RP2025)

(A.) Policy and legislation

(A.1) Policy objectives

Drones are a promising source of innovative services for the society, from safer infrastructure inspections to more efficient transport and mobility solutions. Drones also offer an opportunity to green aviation and optimise deliveries. The aim of the Commission is to promote a transport system that is accessible, affordable, efficient, safe, secure and environmentally friendly and to create the conditions for a competitive industry generating growth and jobs. This is why, in perspective of the foreseen increase in drone traffic in Europe, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport is addressing the safe operations and management of drone traffic in the wider context of aviation safety.

In response to the expanding drone market and the clear need for detailed rules on drone operations and technical requirements, particularly for smaller drones the U-space regulator framework was adopted in 2021. This framework serves as the foundation for managing drone traffic in a safe and efficient manner, positioning Europe as the pioneering region to implement such comprehensive system.

U-space consists of a set of services and procedures based on high levels of digitalisation and automation of functions, while facilitating their coexistence with manned aircraft in certain airspaces.

(A.2) EC perspective and progress report

The impact of the digitalisation cannot be underestimated. Aviation moves from a human-centric system - where safety ultimately depends on pilots and air traffic controllers – towards an information-centric system, where highly automated aircraft can fly safely based on information flowing on mobile telecommunication networks.

As the aviation and mobile telecommunication worlds converge, the need for ICT standard will increase in aviation. This is particularly observable in the field of drones and unmanned aircraft traffic management solution, which are a laboratory for digital aviation solutions.

U-Space is such an unmanned aircraft traffic management solution which will allow the scaling up of the volume of drone operations that are complex, in environments that are challenging. This would include transport and mobility applications in urban environments, or close to airports.

On the basis of the Opinion 01/2020 published by EASA on a high-level regulatory framework for the U-space, the Commission has adopted three Implementing Regulations on a regulatory framework for the U-space. They cover the roles and responsibilities of the organisations involved in the definition of U-space airspace, the provision of U-space airspace services, including common information, and the minimum necessary services that need to be provided for unmanned aircraft in order to operate in the U-space airspace, the roles and responsibilities of Air Traffic Service Providers for the dynamic reconfiguration of airspace and the electronic conspicuity of manned aviation when entering a U-space airspace in non-controlled airspace.

On 29 November 2022, the Commission adopted its Drone Strategy 2.0 where it underlines the need to facilitate the roll-out of the initial U-space regulatory framework. To that end, U-space stakeholders should agree on the necessary protocols to exchange information and prioritise the development of the related standards.

Furthermore, after extended negotiations, the European Parliament approved the SES II+ package on October 22, 2024, with the final act, including Article 12 on Common Information Service pricing, published on November 11, 2024. This marks a pivotal step in advancing efforts to optimize air traffic management and ensure transparent, efficient pricing for U-space services.

For what standardisation concerns, the European Commission established the European UAS Standardisation Coordination Group (EUSCG), a joint coordination and advisory group coordinating the drone-related, including U-space, standardisation activities across Europe, and essentially stemming from the EU regulations and EASA rulemaking initiatives. EUSCG has been strengthened and supported by the efforts of the AW-Drones Horizon 2020 project, which developed an open repository of unmanned aircraft standards and validated the suitability of technical standards for compliance with existing regulations for drone operations. Currently, the EUSCG has published the 8th version of the Rolling Development Plan (U-RDP v8.0), which outlines the work programs of various standard developing organizations across variety areas related to drones. While some actions within this plan have been published, other remain ongoing. The resulting Drone Standards Information Portal is available online and is continuously maintained under an EASA contract.

(A.3) References

(B.) Requested actions and progress in standardisation

(B.1) Requested actions

Action 1: Based on the U-space regulatory framework, and in coordination with the European UAS Standardisation Coordination Group (EUSCG), standardise semantic and technical interoperability specifications to exchange U-space information and operational data:

  • between air navigation service providers, common information service providers and U-space service providers; and
  • between U-space service providers and UAS operators.

Action 2: The following complementary actions could be developed in addition to the standardisation action:

  • Development of a reference implementation of U-space software components to facilitate the adoption of U-space.
  • Development of a testing platform to assess whether the U-space interfaces developed by service providers comply with the standardised specifications.

(C.) Activities and additional information

(C.1) Related standardisation activities

CEN

CEN/TC 377 ‘Air Traffic Management’ has concentrated in the past on the introduction and update of EN 16495 “Air Traffic Management - Information security for organisations supporting civil aviation operations”. The standard represents a variant of the transversal ISO 27002 security standard. It adds a concept of evidence-based trust in the implementation of the security measures of the different stakeholders involved in air traffic management.

While U-Space represents a new discipline of airspace user management adding new “players” and thus new complexities, from a security point of view the fundamental approach of EN 16495 can be applied also with U-space regarding the integration of conventional ATM and U-space management.

ETSI

TC MSG/TFES : https://www.etsi.org/committee/MSG. After CEPT published ECC Decision(22)07 related to the “ Harmonised technical conditions for the usage of aerial UE for communications based on LTE and 5G NR in the bands 703-733 MHz, 832-862 MHz, 880-915 MHz, 1710-1785 MHz, 1920-1980 MHz, 2500-2570 MHz and 2570-2620 MHz harmonised for MFCN”, TC MSG has initiated a new Harmonized Standard on “Aerial User Equipment”. The term aerial UE refers to a UE supporting Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) features and services and requiring an aerial subscription. An aerial UE is installed either on-board an Unmanned Aircraft (e.g. drones) or on-board manned aircraft (e.g. helicopter). It identifies itself to the mobile network as being in this class.

IEEE

IEEE has many efforts underway to develop standards for drones and UASs (Unmanned Aerial Systems):

The Standards Committee: PE/T&D – ‘Power and Energy/Transmission and Distribution’ published a Guide for ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Patrol Inspection System for Transmission Lines’ (IEEE 2821-2020: https://standards.ieee.org/standard/2821-2020.html )

The ‘COM/AccessCore – Communication/Access and Core Networks’ Standards Committee published a Standard for ‘Interface Requirements and Performance Characteristics of Payload Devices in Drones’ (IEEE 1937.1-2020, https://standards.ieee.org/standard/1937_1-2020.html )

More standardisation projects are in the drafting stage and several proposals have been approved:

Standards Committee: COM/AccessCore-SC - Access and Core Networks:

Standards Committee: COM/AccessCore-SC - Access and Core Networks, 
Co-Standards Committee: AES/UAS/UAV/SC, SASB/SCC42:

Standards Committee: COM/MobiNet-SC - Mobile Communication Networks Standards Committee:

Standards Committee: IM/RNIS - TC45 - Radiation and Nuclear Instrumentation and Systems:

Standards Committee: Communications Society/Access and Core Networks:

  • IEEE P1936.3 Standard for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) for above 110 kV Overhead Transmission Line Survey and Design
  • IEEE P1936.4 Standard for Technical Requirements for the Maintenance of Multi-rotor UAS used for Power Grid Inspection
  • IEEE P1936.5 Standard for Technical Requirements for Intelligent Hangar Housing UAS used for Power Grid Inspection
  • IEEE P1936.7 Standard for Mesh Deployment of Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Inspection of Overhead Transmission and Distribution, and Outdoor Substation Facilities
  • IEEE P1936.8 Standard for Monitoring of Photovoltaic Power Stations Using Unmanned Aircraft Systems
  • IEEE P1936.11 Standard for Requirements of Laying Out Pilot Ropes by Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Overhead Power Line Installations
  • IEEE P1936.12 Standard for Verification of Pilot Line Deployment Devices Based on Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Overhead Power Line Installations
  • IEEE P1936.13 Recommended Practice for Image Collection during the Inspection of Overhead Distribution Lines by Unmanned Aircraft Systems
  • IEEE P1936.14 Standard for Multi-Spectral Scanning of Overhead Transmission Lines by Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Standards Committee: Communications Society/Mobile Communication Networks:

  • IEEE P1954 Standard for Self-Organizing Spectrum-Agile Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Communications

Other activities include e.g. the 2022 IEEE Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Competition https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/events/uav-2022 

For more information, go to https://ieeesa.io/eu-rolling-plan

IEFT

The Drone Remote ID Protocol (drip) WG has recently formed in the IETF. Civil Aviation Authorities (CAAs) worldwide have initiated rule making for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Remote Identification (RID). CAAs currently promulgate performance-based regulations that do not mandate specific techniques, but rather cite industry-consensus technical standards as acceptable means of compliance. One key standard is ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials) WK65041. This technical specification defines UAS RID message formats, and transmission methods. Network RID defines a set of information for UAS to be made available globally via the Internet. Broadcast RID defines a set of messages for UAS to send locally one-way over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. WK65041 does not address how to populate/query registries, how to ensure trustworthiness of information, nor how to make the information useful.

DRIP’s goal is to specify how RID can be made trustworthy and available in both Internet and local-only connected scenarios, especially in emergency situations. Some UAS operate in environments where the network or the devices or both are severely constrained in terms of processing, bandwidth (e.g., Bluetooth 4 beacon payload is 25 bytes long), or battery life, and DRIP aims to function in these environments. The specifications produced by the WG will need to balance public safety authorities’ need to know trustworthy information with UAS operators’ and other involved parties’ privacy.

The working group will primarily leverage Internet standards (including HIP, EPP, RDAP, and DNS) and infrastructure as well as domain name registration business models. The WG will track and align with the requirements being developed by regulatory authorities, e.g., the International Civil Aviation Organization the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) delegated and implementing regulations, and the US Federal Aviation Administration (US FAA).

https://wiki.ietf.org/en/group/iab/Multi-Stake-Holder-Platform#h-3412-u-space

ISO

ISO/TC 020/SC 016, Unmanned aircraft systems, includes work on UAS Traffic Management (WG4).

WG4 published:

  • ISO/TR 23629-1:2020, UAS traffic management (UTM) — Part 1: Survey results on UTM

WG4 is working on:

  • ISO/WD 23629-5, UAS traffic management (UTM) — Part 5: UTM functional structure
  • ISO/CD 23629-7, UAS traffic management (UTM) — Part 7: Data model for spatial data
  • ISO/WD 23629-12, UAS traffic management (UTM) — Part 12: Requirements for UTM services and service providers
ITU

ITU-T SG11 is developing a new standard Q.UAMS-SRA “Signalling requirements and architecture for urban air mobility (UAM) service environment” which describes signalling architecture, reference points connecting different functional blocks, signalling requirements for connectivity and service scenarios of UAM.

ITU-R Working Party (WP) 5B is responsible for studies related to the maritime mobile service, including the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), the aeronautical mobile service and the radiodetermination service, including both radiolocation and radionavigation services. It studies communication systems for the maritime mobile and aeronautical mobile services and radar and radiolocation systems for the radiodetermination service.

ITU-R WP 5B has developed the following publications:

  • Report ITU-R M.2171 on “Characteristics of unmanned aircraft systems and spectrum requirements to support their safe operation in non-segregated airspace”
  • Report ITU-R M.2204 on “Characteristics and spectrum considerations for sense and avoid systems use on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)”
  • Report ITU-R M.2205 on “Results of studies of the AM(R)S allocation in the band 960-1 164 MHz and of the AMS(R)S allocation in the band 5 030-5 091 MHz to support control and non-payload communications links for unmanned aircraft systems”
  • Report ITU-R M.2229 on “Compatibility study to support line-of-sight control and non-payload communications links for unmanned aircraft systems proposed in the frequency band 15.4-15.5 GHz”
  • Report ITU-R M.2230 on “Frequency sharing between unmanned aircraft systems for beyond line of sight control and non-payload communications links and other existing and planned services in the frequency bands 13.25-13.40 GHz, 15.4-15.7 GHz, 22.5-22.55 GHz and 23.55-23.60 GHz”
  • Report ITU-R M.2233 on “Examples of technical characteristics for unmanned aircraft control and non-payload communications links”
  • Report ITU-R M.2236 on “Compatibility study to support the line of sight control and non-payload communication links for unmanned aircraft systems proposed in the frequency bands 5 000-5 010 and 5 010-5 030 MHz”
  • Report ITU-R M.2237 on “Compatibility study to support the line-of-sight control and non-payload communications link(s) for unmanned aircraft systems proposed in the frequency band 5 030-5 091 MHz”
  • Report ITU-R M.2238 on “Compatibility study to support line of sight control and non-payload communications links for unmanned aircraft systems proposed in the frequency band 5 091-5 150 MHz”

ITU-R Study Group 1 (WP 1C) produced Report ITU-R SM.2486 on “Use of commercial drones for ITU-R spectrum monitoring tasks”.

EUROCAE

EUROCAE WG-105, Unmanned aircraft systems, includes work on UAS Traffic Management (SG3)

WG-105 published:

ED-269 - Minimum Operational Performance Standard for UAS geo-fencing

ED-270 - Minimum Operational Performance Standard for UAS geo-caging

ED-282 - Minimum Operational Performance Standard for UAS e-reporting

ASTM International

ASTM committee FC38, Unmanned aircraft systems, includes work on UAS Traffic Management (in subcommittee FC38.02, Flight Operations).

FC38.02 published:

  • ASTM F3411 – 19, Standard Specification for Remote ID and Tracking

FC38.02 is working on:

  • WK63418, New Specification for Service provided under UAS Traffic Management (UTM)
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