By Philip Butterworth-Hayes
The European Commission’s EU Action Plan on Drone and Counter Drone Security should in theory speed up the adoption of U-space throughout the EU by integrating security, identification, and detection directly into more high-density, complex drone operations and give more confidence to regulators that these operations can be scaled with an acceptable level of risk. But will this really happen? Or will the limited resources which EU and national regulators have set aside for certifying more U-space area be diverted to work on security instead?
At its heart, the action plan seeks to stitch together three elements: short term cycles of innovation in the drone/counter-drone sectors; telecommunications as a detection capability driver; and emerging defence and security requirements.
So at first sight, the new measures look good for U-space.
The Commission’s proposals will support the scaling up of drone (and counter-drone start-ups) and the ramping up of production capacities and expand industry engagement by convening a drone and counter-drone Industrial Forum, building on the Drone Alliance initiative with Ukraine, bringing together a large ecosystem of underlying and enabling technologies such as chips, AI, quantum, cloud and cyber. “The Commission will furthermore consider options for public-private partnership to address key technology gaps for the development and industrialization of EU produced drone systems,” says the report.
It will establish an EU wide capacity to detect, track and identify in near real time any legitimate drones, supporting the emergence of such tools integrating detection and identification data as well as upstream enablers to distinguish between authorised and non-cooperative drone activity. This will help in standardising rules and procedures throughout the EU. The adoption of a single airspace display format directly supports the U-space goal of shared situational awareness.
Looking ahead, “enhanced situational awareness could be further strengthened through the gradual development of drone conspicuity solutions, building on U-space, registration and identification frameworks,” says the Commission. By Q3 2026 mandatory registration for all drone operators of smaller drones (above 100g) will be required. Direct remote identification obligation will be spread to smaller drones (above 100g). Drones will not be allowed to fly unless an operator identification number has been entered. And there is a commitment to regulatory simplification and flexibility for certain operations.
The Commission is also moving to ensure relevant data should be accessible by competent authorities and to foster more information sharing between Member States to improve lessons learnt. “Detection, tracking and identification capabilities should also be integrated into national border surveillance systems and contribute to the European situational picture, including EUROSUR19, to enable operational support and the coordinated handling of cross-border incidents,” it continued…” detection of malicious drones requires a multi-sensor approach, integrated through AI-powered command-and-control (C2) software, allowing to establish clear situational awareness, in particular to protect critical infrastructure.”
By improving detection and tracking, these new measures will allow authorities to distinguish legitimate, U-space-compliant drones from malicious ones while accelerating the adoption of 5G networks for real-time tracking, a core requirement for U-space service providers (USSPs) to manage traffic efficiently, will be accelerated.
Moreover, independent UTM service suppliers have seen the way the wind has been blowing for some time and have almost all of them integrated counter-UAS features into their UTM offerings, so integrating C-UAS into UTM is essentially a software challenge.
“The danger is that by focusing primarily on counter-UAS, rather than the wider airspace traffic environment, Member States will fail to develop the U-space potential of providing traffic management and security personnel with a holistic view of low-level airspace.”
For many in the industry the key issue is whether EU Member States will now act on the plan.
“It’s all about execution – the elements are all there,” said Koen De Vos, Secretary-General, of the Global UTM Association (GUTMA).
An early test will be for Member States to move ahead on key elements of the action plan such as agreeing the framework for a single airspace display format and defining a “white-lists” of authorised drones. Once these are in place then U-space could, and should, be the key enabler to the Commission’s action plans.
“To us, this is positive news; it sounds like the European Commission is preparing the ground for infrastructure supporting much larger and more robust UAS ecosystems,” said Alon Abelson, CEO & Founder of UTM company High Lander.” Counter-UAS systems are vital for airspace security, but it should be noted that response to hostile drones is only a small part of their role – detection of unidentified, unregistered drones will be their chief purpose. Ideally, all drones would be registered and visible as friendly to the local USSP system, and counter-UAS systems will help make that happen – they’re a vital piece of the puzzle, along with the ability to detect and manage compliant drones. Further, we think that new registration requirements will speed up U-space growth because they’re critical to airspace coordination, without which you can’t build viable drone ecosystems.”
However, the danger is that by focusing primarily on counter-UAS, rather than the wider airspace traffic environment, Member States will fail to develop the U-space potential of providing traffic management and security personnel with a holistic view of low-level airspace. This means that despite the new commitment towards defence and security which is sweeping the continent, EU and wider European countries will not dedicate the resources to developing a wider, low-level airspace management capability. The Commission and Member States could focus too much on platforms, warn some industry experts, rather than software which ties the platforms together. If they do, legitimate drone operators could lose out.
“We welcome the initiative by the EU Commission on the positive implementation of the EU Drone Strategy 2.0 and the action plan to counter drone threats,” said Julie Garland, President of the Joint European Drone Associations (JEDA). “As JEDA we have been proactively involved from the outset; urging proportionality and the balance between security and safety and allowing our commercial drone industry to continue to the heights it should be achieving. We fully embrace and promote mandated conspicuity, but it must be interoperable, cost effective and feasible for the range of drone operations currently being carried out and future use case. And it must be interoperable with other airspace users. We don’t just need to see drones, we need to be able to see all airspace users.”
National regulators who have been working with common information system (CIS) and UTM service providers to certify U-space services beyond the handful currently in operation may have to pause their efforts as they assess the implications of the new Commission plans. Their focus will shift from introducing U-space areas which will allow for the scalable introduction of more complex civil drone operations to planning the implementation of stricter rules on identification and registration – which may make, in the long term, for a more secure low level airspace management system but at the price of losing commercial drone operators who will be unable to scale their businesses. Many small drone operators may struggle with the new requirements for secure, tracked, and “trusted” equipment.
“The European drone industry has been stifled by over regulation and complexity for years, the EASA simplification task force has been very proactive working with the Drone Community Steering Group and these requirements need to enhance and not stifle the regulatory work currently being undertaken to facilitate simple low risk SAIL I/II operations,” according to JEDA’s Julie Garland. “There is also a significant risk that widespread U-Space implementation will be further delayed as it has already fallen from being a high priority and the industry cannot survive without access to airspace for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operators.”
The European Commission, the drone industry and the wider airspace management community will be looking on anxiously over the next few months to see whether Member States embrace and fund the Commission’s action plan – and do so in a balance way which takes account of all airspace users.
(Image: Shutterstock)
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