Thales has received the first full Design Verification Report ever granted by the European Aviation Safety Agency to operate a drone at medium risk, Specific Assurance and Integrity Levels III and IV.
The Design Verification Report (DVR) for the light Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) process was set in place in April 2021 by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to ensure safe drone operations.
Thales said the DVR represents further progress towards the certification of the Thales UAS100 drone and is a decisive step towards deploying long range drones operations in Europe.
EASA has defined a set of rules to guarantee the safety of drone operations, according to a risk based and proportional approach.
The Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) enables defining the applicable Specific Assurance Integrity Level (SAIL) and determines the need for a Design Verification Report (DVR) from the agency.
Thales worked with French avionics startup Aeromapper and aerospace R&D agency Onera, is the first company to achieve the DVR for a complete drone system enabling operations in SAIL III conditions.
This European premiere is the result of close cooperation with EASA to define and validate the means of compliance to the Light UAS Special Condition. The solution is based on Thales ScaleFlyt avionics solution, integrated in AVEM 300 UAV and its CERBERE safety critical autopilot provided by Aeromapper.
ONERA conducted the safety analysis through the PHYDIAS R&T project financed by France’s Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGAC).
“We are particularly proud to achieve such a premiere as it paves the way for wider deployment of secure long-range drone operations. The next milestone to make a step change for civil and governmental UAV operations will be to achieve DVR SAIL IV for Thales UAS100. Defence mission will benefit from AVEM 300 proven triplex avionics, CERBERE, since Aeromapper recently joined forces with Thales’ land and air systems activities” said Marc Duval-Destin, vice president of strategy, product policy and innovation, flight avionics activities at Thales.
Thales UAS100 is secured by the ScaleFlyt avionics solutions used for the DVR. Next steps for its certification are already engaged with the agency and flight test campaign is ongoing, notably through a cooperation agreement with Centaurium UAS, a subsidiary of Switzerland-based Centaurium Group, which plans to provide drone services to Swiss authorities and industry players.
More information about the Thales UAS100 long-range drone system boosted by EASA Design Verification Report milestone.