From 21 to 22 April at the Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel hosted the conference "unmanned aircraft in 2016." The annual event, organized by the Center for Strategic Development in Civil Aviation, collected in one place the main representatives of the market of unmanned aircraft Rossi.
The participants included the entire slice of the industry of unmanned systems designers and manufacturers of aircraft, target hardware and software; representatives of public authorities involved in the formation of legal field of unmanned aviation; community organizations; operators of unmanned aerial vehicles; various consumers of the capabilities of unmanned vehicles.
The first thing unwittingly attracted the attention is a full house. It is obvious that the event, if not attending all scheduled participants, then certainly most of them. At the beginning of the first session in the hall was loose just a few seats. Such excitement is easy to explain – "BA-2016" were discussed the most topical and pressing issues. Perhaps, the greatest interest is the Federal law 462-FZ "ON AMENDMENTS TO the AIR CODE of the RUSSIAN FEDERATION regarding the USE of UNMANNED AIRCRAFT". Although participants noted the need for the adoption of this law and its potential positive effects sounded quite a lot of constructive criticism of this law. The law introduces mandatory certification and registration of unmanned aerial vehicles, however, not specified the criteria for the registration and does not offer real tools implement this requirement. A situation where legislative changes essentially suck the oxygen out of normal operation. It should be noted that the community does not occupy a Supervisory position, and follows the principle of "criticizing – suggest". And offer different options. The most logical seems to be the introduction of three categories of certification: aircraft, UAV weighing up to 30 kg, the UAV weighing more than 30 kg. the certification of the first two categories is proposed to be implemented through the Internet. Also put forward the view that, possibly, it is necessary to introduce also the separation of applicability (mainly for commercial and non-commercial), which seems logical. However, despite the active position of the business community who clearly have something to offer, also heard complaints about the inadequacy of mechanisms work on the legislation. It is obvious that the community is not going to "wait for the sea weather" and ready to act even in the absence of such. For example, the Association of operators and developers of unmanned aircraft systems, has launched on its website a trial service for the registration (or should I say account) unmanned aircraft. In General, the conference was attended by several associations, which indicates a high level of cohesion unmanned community and its desire to self-organize. Returning to the subject of certification, it should be noted that there were supporters of her tightening. Spoke even a point of view that unmanned aircraft should be compared to the gun's level of risk and implement appropriate restrictions, however, this position has not found wide support.
This leads us to the actively debated topic of the safe operation of the UAV. And although the home side of the issue (like another drone fell on someone's head) represents topical interest, a professional community addressed primarily from the point of view of safe operation of UAVs in conjunction with manned aircraft, because it is a prerequisite for the development of unmanned aircraft at the same level as "classic". Although the disagreement between unmanned and manned aircraft is obvious, it is worth noting that between the two spheres there is no conflict, but the opposite is observed in constructive dialogue. As you know, now flying UAV is possible only in a segregated airspace with the use of "modes" as they say in the professional community. In the opinion of all speakers to date, there is only way to safe operation of UAVs in shared airspace – the application of the system of ADS-B. It is expected that this system will minimize to levels that permit safe flight of UAVs, the main problems associated with them: the risk of loss of communication, lack of direct radio visibility, risk of collision in the air. At the same time, as the most optimal solutions are the use of self-organizing network "with each other", when all UAVs are elements of the same network that allows you to monitor (and in some cases control) the machine through other network objects in the absence of direct communication, and allows everyone to watch each other, and synchronize action. There are three standard signal transmission for the implementation of ADS-b IN 1090ES, UAT and VDL4. They all have their peculiarities, all incompatible with each other, and all have their adherents. The conference was attended by representatives of all camps, although the impression was that the VDL4 is the most popular. Despite the attractiveness of the system, in our view, its application to UAV is not a panacea though, because that is not at all manned airspace of the Russian Federation have transponders ADS-b, what can we say about drones. However, it is pleasant to note that Russia can safely be called one of the most advanced countries in terms of work on the integration of unmanned aircraft into manned and occupies a leading position in ICAO work on this issue. And although today, in our view, it is difficult to predict when the UAV will fly side by side with an-2 and MI-8, we believe that "the road will overcome the walking".
Perhaps the third most important topic was the topic of education and professional standards. Strong growth in the number and applicability of UAVs raises the need for qualified and professional staff. The successful resolution of the issues described above, directly depends on personnel. Now the labor market is behind the rising market of drones and professionals strongly enough. The main opportunities for training now exist in the plane of the additional education. Certain successes in the field of training industry standards and specialists already have not only from public educational institutions. Some government agencies operating the UAV, themselves beg the question of preparation of qualified workers to fit their needs. For example, the Academy of civil defence EMERCOM of Russia has a license for training students on specialization "management of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles in emergency response". In General, there is a clear interest in the topic from both providers of educational services and technology directly, and on the part of the state. All this allows to hope that the gap between exploitation and training will soon be eliminated.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the conference "unmanned aircraft-2016" can safely be called alive. Live from the point of view the point of view of the number and composition of participants, from the point of view of results. This inevitably suggests that the emerging market of unmanned aviation in Russia has all chances to become a strong, significant and cause for pride not only in narrow circles within the country but also around the world. Especially if it is developed based on the experience of their "senior comrades".
