FST JOURNAL

Drone technologies – a potential game-changer?

On 1 March 2024, a new UK Defence Drone Strategy was launched by the Government, unifying the approach across the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, integrated by UK Strategic Command. The strategy announcement is supported by some £4.5 billion of investment and will work closely with industry. The mainstream public events calendar for 2024 includes regular drone light shows that engage the public in telling amazing stories. We also regularly hear of drones being used to deliver medical supplies cost effectively to those living in remote areas, including the transportation of organs to save lives.

It all seems a long way from the newspaper headlines back in December 2018 when hundreds of flights were cancelled following reports of drone sightings which closed the runway at Gatwick for nearly two days. No evidence of drones was ever found but the incident caused massive media speculation, creating confusion and concerns across business and the public. Were drones a benefit or a threat to society? It had a significant impact on the widespread adoption of drones across the UK.

Five years on and the world has changed. The Covid crisis saw extensive use of drones supporting our blue-light services and introducing essential drone delivery arrangements. The Ukraine crisis over the past two years has stimulated technology development of not just drone technology itself but also the management of drones in manned airspace. This has changed key aspects of modern warfare. These and other applications have highlighted the transformational benefits that can come with extensive use of drones.

I have had the privilege to be involved with the Government-sponsored Drone Industry Action Group (DIAG) for a number of years and have seen this transformation take shape – but there is still much to be done. DIAG was established in 2016 as a collaborative forum between Government and industry to ‘inform, support and shape the business environment’ needed for successful commercialisation opportunities for drones in the UK.

There has been much progress since DIAG was first formed although it has been slower than first envisaged. In the summer of 2022, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS and now the Department for Business and Trade) put forward a Drones Ambition Statement for the UK. This outlined how Government would work together across Departments and business to achieve a vision for commercial drones which would make them commonplace across the country by 2030. The Statement built on the market assessment work done by PWC in their ‘Skies without Limits’ report. In this, they estimated that drones could be worth £45 billion to the UK economy by 2030 – bringing benefits to wider society through delivering new capabilities, boosting productivity, contributing to the net zero carbon targets with reduced emissions and reducing risk to life. This would be done sharing airspace safely and equitably with other users. 

The Government, led now by the Department of Transport, has established a Future of Flight Industry Group. Co-chaired by Government and industry, this will collaborate on the development and delivery of a Future Flight Plan to maximise the benefits from the new drone and Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) technologies through to 2027. This pathway includes objectives to have the UK’s first commercial drone delivery operational by 2025 and envisages drones used routinely in Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS) operations within health, emergency services and policing by 2027.

The Government (through UKRI and InnovateUK) and industry has funded drone and UAS innovation projects in a multi-year Future of Flight Grand Challenge. Innovate UK has provided £125 million investment backed by £175 million from industry. The Challenge has delivered real progress to advance future flight in the UK and to demonstrate, among other objectives, the safe integration and operation of drones. 

In addition, the Challenge has brought in social science research and has addressed public perceptions as well as questions of trust and social desirability. Among the many funded projects have been work with Royal Mail and NHS Kernow to provide residents in Cornwall and on the Isles of Scilly with drone deliveries of mail and medical supplies. Others have transformed the way we survey critical infrastructure such as powerlines and railway lines.

There are still barriers to be overcome - mostly regulatory, legal, insurance and social acceptance concerns rather than technology-related issues. PWC issued a report some 18 months ago entitled ‘Building Trust in Drones’ to assess how business attitudes towards drones have changed and recommending what else needs to be done. The report concludes there is little doubting the positive benefits of drones and it highlights some great application opportunities, for example, for road traffic management, asset inspection and the relaying of images and data to support search and rescue.

However, though the survey work done by PWC showed increased positivity towards drones, it concluded that only 43% of respondents thought industry was using drones effectively and many people were still unsure about them and waiting to be convinced.

At Cranfield University we have been involved in Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) research and development for over 30 years. It is one of the few universities in the world with its own airport, its own runway, ownership of its own airspace navigation service provider (ANSP), its own aircraft and its own pilots. The facilities and capabilities are brought together under the Cranfield Global Research Airport – very much a UK national asset. 

It carries out world-leading research on autonomous systems, communications and airspace management, alongside the regulatory and commercial framework of running an operational airport. This presents great opportunities for research and development in tandem with the practicalities of doing things in a regulated airspace environment – a small microcosm of the wider UK airspace and urban environment. The National Drone Innovation Gateway has also been established at Cranfield, led by Cranfield University, Neuron Innovations and Ebeni with the aim of supporting innovators in the UK drone ecosystem.

There are excellent examples of new start-up businesses which have used the facilities and expertise available at Cranfield to build their business – two great examples are Herotech8 and Iona.

Herotech8 has developed the concept of providing ‘drone-in-a-box’ technology to support round-the-clock automated drone operations. It has great applications for aerial inspection and monitoring capabilities without the need for onsite pilots or teams. One striking example from Herotech8 is their partnership with Magnox and the decommissioning of nuclear sites. The process is highly complex but a dedicated drone system removes the need for manual inspection and surveillance work and so reduces cost, risk, time and resource, all of which mean operations on site are completed safely and more efficiently.

The remote access drone station also allows for inspection and surveillance tasks to be completed without the need for individuals to be on site at all and can be quickly executed without ever requiring a pilot to set foot on the facility. The benefits of unmanned facility inspection and surveillance in hostile environments are significant.

Iona is another drone start-up company based out of Cranfield. They have developed a very efficient robotic network for low cost and sustainable deliveries in rural areas. During the Covid crisis, Iona worked with the Argyll & Bute Health and Social Care Partnership to get testing kits and results to isolated communities as quickly as possible. During a three-month initiative, medical deliveries that traditionally took 24-36 hours took just 15 minutes. The concept has now been extended to other projects.

Cranfield Airport is also part of the CAA innovation sandbox, promoting uses in a carefully managed and regulated environment. The sandbox project at Cranfield is seeking to fly in the vicinity of Cranfield Airport and Milton Keynes, enabling crewed and uncrewed aircraft to co-exist in a safe and efficient operating environment.

On a wider recognition front, an organisation called Airwards was established with the aim of creating awareness, building trust and changing perspectives through awards and story-telling. Previous winners have come from around the world and the awards have recognised technology, operations, supporting services and industry applications as well as identifying the innovators who have made great progress.

The progress since that Gatwick moment in 2018 has been significant and industry has done much to highlight the potential benefits to society while being mindful of the potential risk to UK security evident in the increasing use of this technology in war. So, the work to realise the full UK economic and social benefit continues. The prize is worth chasing and we all have a part to play in ensuring the UK can realise these benefits, and that the vision and ambition of drone commercialisation by 2030 is fully materialised.