UAV Collision Avoidance: How Japan’s Drone Industry Collaborated to Establish a Latest International Standard
On Oct. 6, Japanese-based NEDO (the Latest Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) announced that their proposal for an improved collision avoidance system for UAVs has been adopted as a revision to the usual by ISO, the International Standards Organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. Published as “ISO21384-3 Unmanned aircraft systems―Part 3: Operational procedures”, the brand new standard has been in development since 2021 by Subaru, Japan Radio, and ACSL as a part of NEDO’s “Project to Realize an Energy-Saving Society Where Robots and Drones Are Energetic.”
Multiple players from Japan’s drone sector collaborated on the project to push forward standardization within the industry. Without fully internationalized collision-avoidance procedures, cross-border UAV operations may be difficult or not possible to finish safely. By creating a world standard, the event of collision-avoidance technology may be centralized. The brand new chapter on CONOPS (concept of operations) features a recent 6-step process UAVs should follow when engaged in collision avoidance, starting with object detection and recognition and ending with a return to the previous flight path. Subaru drafted the initial standard, and Japan Radio Co. and ACSL helped test and reveal the implementation of the collision avoidance system. The international standard for drone development now includes self-guided object avoidance, a vital step forward for the industry.
The strategy of establishing global frameworks for UAV development and operation have been in development for a very long time: in 2018 the ISO announced that recent, global standards can be published in response to a request from international air control organizations. Especially as UTM programs turn out to be more common internationally (recently, the Israeli government announced that drones couldn’t fly of their airspace unless attached to an approved UTM system), these international standards will turn out to be increasingly vital to drone manufacturers and software developers.