The rising number of UAS (drones) accessing the airspace and the increased complexity of their operations in BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line Of Sight) conditions, led to the introduction of specific rules and procedures for their use (EU regulatory package 2021/664 U-space) where UAS is expected to operate alongside ultralight and general aviation aircraft.
For this class of aircraft and UAS there is no aeronautical grade certified component ensuring position information that is trustable enough to be used to ensure the position and flight path information with evidential value from a legal perspective inside the U-space airspace.
In this scenario, a solution that ensures the authenticity of the position information is needed for all the U-space users operating in Very Low Level Airspace (VLL - up to 120 meters above the ground level), especially for safety-critical and commercially valuable applications.
CERTIFLIGHT project proposes a new U-space service for the legal certification of tracks generated by UAS and aircraft flights, through the introduction of a new disruptive EGNSS-IoT digital system. Certiflight solution aims to establish and uphold the "chain of trust" of flight data information of drones and ultralight aircraft with particular attention to position information:
• The recorded flight tracks, with associated images and data acquired, are useful for delivering a new class of UAS services for business, but also for law enforcement, auditing systems and accident investigations.
• Legal aspects have a crucial role in the Certiflight service
• Certiflight uses concepts similar to those applicable to tachographs that are established in the Commission implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/799.
• Certiflight legitimizes the use of “smart contracts”, by activating the contractual conditions based on particular flight routes and performance.
• Several use cases were identified with final users of the service and some demonstrations of the basic features were already showcased.
Certiflight aims to generate a meaningful impact at different levels:
• technological /societal, by raising awareness about EGNSS services (i.e. OSNMA) as a possibile implementation for standardization of Legal Recording Services related to tracking applications ;
• scientific/technological, by exploiting EGNSS features in combination with dissimilar technologies for spoofing detection and mitigation
• business / EU competitiveness, by contributing to the competitiveness of the European SMEs in the area of UTM services;
• Economic/Societal, by maximizing the benefits made by Certiflight for mobility and the sharing economy
• Environmental /Business, through UAS trajectories optimization for new environmental friendly applications as parcel delivery implemented by electric drones.
