Automated Cargo Delivery in Low Altitudes: Concepts and Research Questions of an Operational-Risk-Based Approach

The project Automated Low Altitude Air Delivery–ALAADy is a study on the design of a heavy-lift transportation drone in the context of certification based on operational risks. This chapter is the opening of a book providing the results of the initial phase of the project within the years 2016 to 2019. Conceptually, in ALAADy, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are envisioned to provide a payload capacity of around one metric ton. Research questions on how the newly established EASA Specific Category of drone operation and its acceptable means of compliance, the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA), influences the UAS are introduced and motivated in this chapter. Applying the SORA imposes limits to the operation to ensure safety. The project focus is investigating the impact on the UAS design if the operational limitations are maximized by restricting the flight over sparsely populated areas and below common air traffic only, while exploring large-scale UAS at the same time. The aspects considered include UAS design, aircraft configuration, system architecture, datalinks, safe autonomy, and airspace integration. The impact on the use-cases of such a UAS as well as the effect on the economical perspective are also addressed. Finally, this chapter introduces the need to design and implement scaled technology demonstrators and presents the overall project’s perspective to experimental analysis. One demonstrator is based on a manned micro light gyrocopter converted into a cargo drone. It enables payload transportation of around 150–200 kg and is applied to validate the conceptual part of the ALAADy project beyond simulation.