# Setting up an EASA-Compliant Remote Command Center for Docked Drone Operation

- Event: NestGen ’25
- Published: March 7, 2025
- Length: 43:32
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/49jpdUslAwo/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## Transcript

**[0:21]** so good afternoon everyone welcome my name is maruchi I'm the CEO of Euro USC Italia Consulting based in Italy supporting operators and manufacturers uh on us regulatory aspects so I'm really honored to be here today to moderate this great panel about uh EU regulations for dock drone operations we all know that BBL Los operations have the potential to transform industries from infrastructure inspections to logistics for example however uh turning this potential into reality uh requires more than just technological advancement and the real challenge lies often in navigating the regulatory framework ensuring safety compliance and of course securing the necessary approvals so that's why today we've brought together an exceptional group of experts to share their insights on how to set up a remote Command Center for Boss operation

**[1:28]** and we'll discuss key topics with them like selecting the right hardware and software of course but also integrating critical safety components and uh most importantly getting approval for the operations so I'm really honored to be joined here by a great team of experts uh they bring a wealth of knowledge hands-on experience in Boss operations and I'm really excited to dive into this discussion with them so let's get started and let me uh give the floor to our panelist so they can introduce themselves and I'd like to start with the earing from DJI yeah sure thank you Michael hi everyone my name is Irving and Doc Solutions engineer from DJI Enterprise uh yeah basically I know the our product DJI Doc and also we are cooperating with all the European uh doc Market participates I would say

**[2:29]** that and supporting all the key projects in the in the do sectors and I'm very happy to join this sension yeah thank you thank youing uh so next uh in our lineup it's B from Sky drone hi everyone um my name is BJ I'm head of projects as Sky drone where a company active as a future us space service provider Counter UAV and um Bost drone operations in Belgium thank you ber and next we have Ludovic from davia welcome ludovik hello hi everyone I'm ludovik CEO of davia davia is a wellknown company we provide flight termination system for mainly DJI drones but not only and also parachute solutions that help customer get SORA approval or C5 at the moment compliance for the DJI drones and we also make uh remote identification devices thank you thank you thank you l and last but not least Nica from a group

**[3:34]** Hi H I'm ni Mar a group group is anali company that help the Enterprise company in the introduction of a Mate system in the operational and maintenance process so we help a lot of company in the pp loss project and we will talk later about that all right thank you all for being here uh today uh yeah I think it's time to start diving into the topic of our discussion and I'd like to start from uh Irving so the first question I have for you is about your experience uh because as DJI you have definitely a vast customer base so I'd like to understand from you what are the main challenges that your customers encounter when it comes to implementing dock drone Solutions in AA countries so so what's your experience on this yeah thank you Marco yeah thanks for the question

**[4:35]** basically that's a question I always receive also from my manager in DJI so what stop us to sell the dog I would say that there are actually uh two key points uh the first one is really complicated for a Chinese company to understand the yasa lows like the regulations all the Drone regulation uh it's it's really complicated uh to have those communication between us as a drone man manufacturer and directly with National Aviation Authority also to understand how the regulation works and how we can help our doc operator to achieve the like a regulated way to operate Doc it's big challenge for us and what's more we're also having like I would say marketing Market education Doc is complicated Solutions we need to basically uh show customer how to plan a mission how to launch the mission how to analyze the data it's also complicated for us we are working on both of the sides and I think today uh it's really great chance to gather very very a lot of important people to discuss about

**[5:39]** the our first pinpoints it it will be really great and valuable chance for us to learn as well yeah thank you thank you iring so I'd like to move to be with a a kind of more specific question because uh uh I mean in my experience at least one of the key issues that uh operators have uh in general but with Doc drones operations in particular is accessing the airspace so we know that enabling a seamless airspace access is definitely crucial for the scalability of a highly automated operations and in Europe we often see that authorities are using airspace segregation uh has the go-to approach but we can all understand that this is not really sustainable long-term solution so what are in your opinion the key enablers that are needed to integrate doc drones into a shared airspace effectively let me

**[6:42]** say right M Marco as you mentioned is not a scalable solution so it's limiting airspace availability operational flexibility and so on our local CA um basically has decided that for a quick oneoff Pock it's still okay but for operational use it's it's definitely not uh not viable so um the problem with with um segregating is basically is trying to solve the C and avoid that were missing with drones by just eliminating the fact that there is something there that to see and to avoid uh and instead of that we developed a BOS enablement framework which basically does a shift from C and avoid to detect and de conflict um and that BOS framework allowed us to operate uh different B flights from a centralized control center one example of where we uh employed this uh this framework is the port of entr for those of you know Belgium a bit it's um at the in the north part of the flamish region um it's

**[7:45]** one of the biggest Financial economical hubs in Belgium and it's a really complex and challenging airspace with a lot of overlapping Geo zones like the international airport and Regional airfields heliports restricted areas you name it everything you can find in the air is there so basically to be able to deal with that situation there um we would ideally be looking at us space there which is one of the things that we're looking at today in uh a Cesar project called birdie where we're trying to um establish use space and among other zones in the port of anord by the end of this year but it's still not there use space and although it's a key enaer for this type of integration we still had to deal with the fact that we didn't have it yet so um under the deive project we utilize boss enablement which basically takes strategic confliction via flight authorization Services real-time tracking through Network identification and surveillance um equipment tactical collision avoidance

**[8:46]** using the Traffic Information Services that we as skyro provide and a UTM system based in the geozone with its own um access conditions for crude and uncrewed Aviation so um in in an in a nutshell basically that framework and if you are a bit familiar with Sora it's basically based around common structures and rules um we are able to mitigate the air risk down to a c 2 and allow for a safe and sustainable mission in that type of area okay yeah that's very interesting and uh it looks like a promising solution because uh um we know that usace regulation is there in Europe but usace in practice is not yet fully implemented uh anywhere so we need probably some kind of uh shorter term solutions to get BB loss operations going uh faster okay thank you very much so

**[9:47]** let me move to lovic with a question that is more about specific functionalities that are often needed so we often see that uh to obtain an operational authorization for a drone in a box solution it's needed to integrate additional safety functionalities which are not always coming directly with the draw a box solution itself so in your experience what are the most common requirements that are imposed by Regulators in Europe and do you think that technology is mature enough to meet these demands yes um yeah obviously most of the Drone in the dock solution don't Implement all the necessary feature to get easy flight authorization and that's where Tavia is uh entering in place because we provide flight termination system and it's the key thing the flight termination system in the regulation it's an old concept but uh still in place and Regulators want you to be able to

**[10:54]** kill the Drone if needed if you lose control and uh we have flight termination system at the moment for most of DJI drones but it's uh kind of line of sight flight termination system you are on the same side as a pilot you on the same side of the Drone and you are able to stop the flight with a dedicated remote controller that's the basic uh flight termination system so doc Solutions uh where you have no pilots on the ground you need additional feature you need to have the capability to trigger the flight termination system through internet and it must be in a way independent from the platform you'll use for setting or piloting the Drone itself or you can also add some uh geoc caging feature on the Drone meaning the FTS will be able to uh rely on a geoc caging solution but a different geoc caging than the one implemented in the Drone so the main two feature to get flight authorization at the

**[11:59]** moment flight termination system and geoc caging solution which mean uh you need to add this to actual DJI drones or other drones because most of the Chinese manufacturers they don't have all those solution integrated in the drone at the moment uh in many of the countries or Market it's not mandatory it's really a European uh specialty is it mature at the moment flight termination system yes they are really mature uh and we are working hard on the ability to trigger flight amination system through a new platform like flight H or or Fleet base and we are working hard on Jo caging solution too uh it will be available this year uh hopefully first semester and this will really unlock the usage of the Drone because if you don't have those two uh possibility uh remote triggering of the flight termination system or automatic triggering through Jo solution it's really complex to get flight

**[13:02]** authorization you need somebody on the ground and you lose all the interest you have with drawn in a box solution which is full remote control of those of those Solutions yeah thank you I mean this uh seems to be currently one of the main challenges so increasing the level of autonomy of operations with Doc drones so let me uh ask to Nica uh who is representing an operator is perspective on this so Nica you are a system integrator and soon to be L operator so how do you see the role of this docked drone Solutions evolving in the near future and do you believe based also on what we discussed until now that full autonomy is feasible in the short medium term good question really really good question um of course uh we are in the very very close uh to the business needs as a system integrator so we perfectly

**[14:09]** understand that the use of D drone from from customer means in the mind of the customer that they will they want to pay less for the for the Flight of the Drone so autonomous uh is it's important for them but I think that we are not so close for having full autonomous flights uh I try to I try to to give you some some of my idea for letting drone really autonomous I think that artificial intelligence in general needs to be improved in terms of letting the drones uh collaborating with other Thrones and other system uh in real time for the the safy of the Flight of the safy of the environment uh second second point for the fully autonomous flight for me is something that is not ready now and so the ability for the Drone to

**[15:14]** self-maintenance then Sol today we have we are we have drone that are in a in a dog uh in a nest they can charge they can exchange data between uh between the platform and so on but uh we need the human intervention for the maintenance for a fully autonomous uh process more than drone uh we need that also the Drone or also the The Nest uh can have some feature of self maintenance and this this is something that do not exist yet uh we talk and the the other talk about uh the needs of the usace UTM for for managing the the the collaboration in in the air drone and I totally I I I totally agree uh last things for me is the reliability uh of the sensor and of the communication into the Drone like the

**[16:19]** high plane we need drone that are able to have uh more redundancy of the system so the F safe uh the parachute okay but also in the communication system and the flight control and so on I think that more arability on that and more redundancy it's it's important for having at the end an autonomous a fully autonomous Services all right thank you very much I think it was a kind of interesting uh first round of uh of answers we already raised some of the critical uh points that we have now in this domain and the key issues that manufacturers and operators are facing when it comes to getting approvals for dock drones operations so now I' would like to kind of dig a little bit more into some detail of uh some of

**[17:20]** the challenges that are often uh encountered by operators and manufacturers and I'd like to start from from Ludovic so um ground risk mitigation is one of the key uh things to be addressed especially when operating in areas where there might be people so sparsely or populated areas and the solution that is often used is that of parachutes but we all know that parachutes are not effective if the operational height is below 40 or 30 m something around this uh this value so um how do you see the regulatory requirements evolving in this regard so how do you see the uh possibilities of mitigating ground Risk by operating at very low level possibly without a parachute yes it's a good question actually the regulation uh it don't explicitly

**[18:26]** say you need a parachute you need a way to reduce the impact energy in case of a of a f but technically speaking it's parachute is the most easiest way let's say that uh because it's lightweight uh it can it's reliable meaning of course you need at least 30 meter to fully deploy the parachute and slow down the speed of the Drone but it's reliable and uh it's a well-known technology and it's lightweight it's mainly the key because actually uh technically speaking you can put almost everything on a drone but it must be lightweight if you put a big accessory heavy accessory uh you lose lots of benefit uh autonomy of the Drone flight duration and uh also controllability of the Drone and that's why I think most of the accessory manufacturer make parachute system

**[19:26]** because airbag are heavier uh and other Solutions are more complex but in the other hand you extend of course the the the buer Zone because when you have a parachute and when you have wind you have a lot of drift of the Drone so it's not the perfect solution at the moment the parachute in populated area the regulation I think will go in different way uh first for the C5 which is not a scenario for the dock solution but in C5 it's highly probable that the parachut will not be mandatory anymore because it's not uh it's not Crossing all the box for for the populated area flight uh but two bigs and the solution yeah Works uh up to 30 meter and most of the of the missions are below this level of of 30 meter so either we we we can think parachute or other

**[20:28]** way to use impact energy will not be mandatory anymore because considering you are in a segregated area or either we need to find other solution to to to reduce the the impact uh energy that's for for for C5 for do solutions for BV loss flights it still makes sense uh for operations at high altitude or when you fly over populated area with high density parachute still makes sense because it's been perhaps eight years we made parachute system those systems are reliable and it's a a good Solutions at high altitude but clearly at low altitude below 30 m we need to find other solution regulatory ones or technically speaking other Solutions at the moment okay thanks yes this is an interesting discussion because uh um if you look at how the regulatory framework is built at the moment I'm referring to Sora in particular

**[21:30]** uh in order to operate over poed areas you only have two options so either you install some kind of system like a parachute or something equivalent to that or you demonstrate a high reliability of your system as a whole which might be again challenging and expensive to to be done and I'm not saying that current Technologies are not reliable I'm only saying that it might be expensive to demonstrate a given level of reliability which is a different story actually uh okay so thank thanks a lot um I'd like now to move back to Nia with another questions question about operations so the uh main benefit of operating uh docked drones is that you can operate from a single location like a remote control station Center sorry uh fleets of dock drones distributed along a wide uh area but this is of course coming with significant logistical and

**[22:36]** Regulatory challenges like the need of having a generic authorization or an Lu for example so in your experience in your view what are the key operational strategies that organizations should adopt to streamline approvals make it quick and ensure compliance okay okay it's not it's not so simple to answer but I I I will try with uh with some example on ourself at the hand uh we started remote operation uh activities two years ago at the end and we started with specific and experimental authorization by our national Authority so we started with notm we started with agregation of the area and so on we were we are talking about project related to the to the highways so we installed nest on the highway for different uses trp monitor

**[23:42]** infrastructure inspection and and so on at the hand uh for letting the customer or in general letting uh expanding the the the usage of drone we move it to the h certific ation so the answer is to create is uh to create a control center uh with the LC certification and and that's what we we did last month with the closing of the l l Pro process because what we were doing in experimental uh phase was exactly uh what the L request at the end so have a safy management procedure have a proactive regulatory engagement uh checking every time if something changed in the in in The Roots uh of of inside inside our project have a compliance officer

**[24:48]** at the hand who check every time the the changes and so on so mainly my answer is uh if you want to uh scale if you want adopt uh those kind of Technology you need to have an an an L you see certification then because the logistic is important we have different Nest uh around around the our country of course a standardization of the technology is it's it's important the at the same time so do not have many vendor do not have many many option many platform and so on but choose the best one in that moment and take it and use it this is the uh the the simplification of the the Fleet Management and the simplification of the VAR that that's my answer for having under our hand the management of the compliance and the management of the

**[25:54]** logistic yeah thanks I mean this is I think great input so Lu was uh intended exactly as the tool to enable more complex and more advanced operations so using Lu for this kind of activities is exactly the the perfect solution I I agree and uh let's hope that um industry will go in this direction because this is going to be a win-win for both operators and Regulators reducing their involvement in the in the approvals um Okay so let me now move to uh Berna and I'd like to go back to the discussion about um integration in the airace um we mentioned before that we do have a regulatory framework in Europe about usace which is exactly designed to support this drone integration but we also see that usace airspace implementation is still in progress almost everywhere so in the meantime right now like if you were to

**[27:00]** start your operations tomorrow what kind of Technologies can operators use to mitigate a risk effectively so before you talked about procedures but Are there specific technologies that you would recommend yeah indeed so um as I mentioned in the previous question the the BOS framework um relies basically on the same type of services that usace would um impose to the usace service per provider to provide to to operators um so the flight authorization service realtime um traffic information all that kind of uh thing that that is known very well by everybody in in this panel in usace we're basically putting that towards operators as services in there now key um Necessities in that setup are um for one the electronic EC conspicuity um the main issue that we see today with at least the air risk is um is the fact that uh cmbc is is a

**[28:05]** necessity especially for BOS flights and there uh existing Technologies are usable if you combine enough and and the right data sources so what we do uh in Belgium is we combine for man deviation adsb flarm uh mod s and then mod s in combination with mlot or um Mes in combination with the approach Radars of our national ansp uh in terms of detecting Cooperative drones we have Telemetry API that allows for The Operators to provide their Telemetry directly to our system and we can redistribute it to other customers so um different drone operators for instance in the port of anthro can see each other fly to uh to deconflict um next next to that uh there's also the issue of non-cooperative airspace users where basically if you look at uh typical areas around the ports around airports where you should not be flying without a permit 99% of the of the pilots or

**[29:08]** operators there are flying legally without knowing it or willing uh I with knowing uh the fact that they are flying illegally but just don't care about it they're also posing a threat so in terms of of key um technology today definitely any technology that provides you with a better situational awareness in the air space is is a must there there's no question about that um other than that it's mainly uh taking a look at the similar services that we will be getting in usace so as I mentioned the four mandatory Services where we're talking about flight authorization real-time airspace awareness um Network identification and then technical collision avoidance with with it this based on that Eon security um if you can already employ those and then combine that with uh the flight termination system like ludic was mentioning for instance then you have a strong case of being able to uh actually fly today

**[30:09]** without usace does that mean that we don't need usace simple answer no because it's still Limited in locations where you can actually employ this strategy or not well thank you thanks a lot for this uh for this answer and I'd like to build on what you just said by uh ask something to to Irving so uh the regulatory framework is evolving AA is going to adopt the new Sora s 2.5 in the coming months which is going to solve some of the issues we discussed here about ground risk assessment and mitigations but a risk will still remain a major uh challenge so on your side as a US manufacturer do you see any specific solution uh among those that b mentioned or others that could be integrated into your products to facilitate air space access mitigate the risk in in general MH yeah sure that's that's actually a very critical question we also receive many uh

**[31:15]** let's say product request from our from our customer like how your product could help us to like guarantee the airspace safety it's really challenging question uh I could share something that we are uh start to work on is like emergency landing if if there's any like helicopter passing by or manded aircraft passing by it's possible to land the dark drone okay current on fly Hub to also something what what we already worked down is adpn so we are all the time receiving the broadcasting adsp signals on the Drone and we have the onboard sensors on the Drone themselves uh and I think in the future we are also uh very open to receive more and more request and uh and uh have more like better but put it easily away for our doc operators and another and on another hand we're also working on a more robust system that's actually uh let's say our strength as a drone manufacturer for many years we know about the UAV system we know how how we can improve the IP rating the wind

**[32:19]** resistance and all about the All About the robustness how how safety we can even build more of the of the system yeah basically that's uh the direction that's we are working on on next generation of the doc well thank you that's good news I think for uh a lot of people out there um so I'd like now to pick some of the questions that we received from the audience uh there's one that is uh kind of General so I will split uh the question uh into two different answers so um the the question is uh how to basically get an approval for a BV loss operation with a dock drone from an operator and a manufacturer perspective so I'd like to start with Nica uh with the operator perspective so what would you say Nica is the key to obtain an operational authorization with a doc drone what what is the most relevant thing that you

**[33:23]** need it it depend it depend of course of the use case of the of the mission of of the of the operation where the operation are and uh normally as uh service operator we we need to fight against the uh the customer needs and the the real world of flying of flying but but by the way the the authorization it's a it's a standard Pro process at the end because we need to to create a a Ops uh document we need to make Sora we need to reach the C2 uh so there are steps that are mandatory for the for the safy of the flight H and that's that's what we do so we calculate all the all the parameters for letting the operation feasible at the at the end uh working with uh the parameters that we can move to add

**[34:27]** the the the the right direct value for the for for the authorization at the end today we cannot fly 400 kilometers in beefing loss from moving from one country to another country but of course but but for sure we helped all of our customer to achieve uh the request for uh dilos Mission at the end we we never f uh for standard or um Advanced request it's it's a matter of balance between between technology between operation I see but I think you said a very important thing so we designed the mission and the concept of operations to reach a maximum sale of two uh that's probably one of the limitations we we have now that operating at sale above two it's uh nowadays close

**[35:30]** to Impossible I would say for many reasons so let me now take the manufacturer perspective uh Irving so what is in your opinion the main driver to obtain an operational authorization at sale two and in the future potentially at sale three for exploring more possibilities yeah sure so if the operation risk based on the risk assessment if they falls under two like one two uh it's it's requires a huge huge numbers of the documentation I st it's a lot of like paperwork we need to do is uh so there are basically just two ways done by yourself or done by the professional hands like Marco team so uh from DJI side we are actually providing a a template with all like the fulfi specification of our product so actually The Operators can use it to save your time to to prepare for the uh documentation for the paperworks but it's also

**[36:32]** recommended to put this let's say the huge work to a professional hand uh to like save your time also like in a very sufficient way to get approval and another topic regarding the operation which uh the risk is let's say the fing to cell three and four I believe we are also working on several technology to ensure uh more uh robustness uh commun iation between the machine and human like machine human interaction like use the machine technology to correct the human mistakes like op operators mistakes and some uh Network insurance and some like security of the internet yeah we are working on it in different perspective I believe it's uh soon in the future we can also read some use casing the celles stre yeah okay thanks thanks a lot um I think we have a question for Ludovic this is definitely for you so there's a question about flight termination systems so if you

**[37:36]** can explain a little bit more in detail how a flight termination system works and why it's so important for BBL loss operation so why do we have this requirement in the in the regulation and where where it's coming from oh I think you're muted sorry yes so a flight termination system basically it's a system that enable the termination of the flight so meaning additionally to the um fature included in the Drone the flight termination system is independent and has its own way to terminate the flight the goal for the the reg in a regulation perspective is if you lose the control of the Drone it's better to terminate the flight by stopping the motor somewhere you know you are and it's better than letting the Drone go uh somewhere you don't know basically

**[38:41]** because when you you start your mission you you set the flight area flight volume and Authority want some guarantee that you will stay in this flight volume and flight termination system is a way there's other ways too it's a way to guarantee that the Drone will stay in the flight volume because if it leaves the flight volume either you trigger the flight termination system and and the Drone is staying in the flight volume because you terminate the flight or either a jail caging solution automatically trigger the flight termination system and both where you you ensure the Drone is staying in the flight volume that's really the reason and it's some kind of an old regulation because at the beginning of the Drone Market you got some drone even from DJI a big manufacturers that encounter GPS malfunctions and make some flyways now it's less and less uh the case but uh there's still some scenarios when you can can have a fly away and and fly termination system is a way

**[39:45]** to to to eliminate the risk in case of fly away all right thanks thanks a lot um so we have another question it's kind of specific so I'll I'll try with B you tell me if if you can answer this so um the question is if it's possible to I guess simplify the approval process to use one of the predefined risk Assessments in particular uh the question here refers to pdra g03 for uh drawing in a box solution operated below 30 m above the ground over a spot for area so do you have any experience of using pdra for Doc drones operations we've been looking at different P to to enable this um and if you look at golf 03 it's basically made for the um use case described there the

**[40:45]** main hurdle I would say is the fact that it also demands direct C2 link so depending on if you can um basically uh get your uh your your uh CAA on board with the fact that you can you can guarantee that you have a direct C2 Link at all times and not just a cloud link via flight H or FlytBase in this case um then it should be possible because uh looking at the questions details the maximum height is not over the the limits of the PD the the dimensions of the Drone kinetic energy are all fine so it's basically boiling down to that can you um have them believe that it's it's a direct link which is basic discussion Point yeah you're definitely right so that's that's one of the main limitations and I think uh these kind of limitations are also one of the reasons why pdas are not so

**[41:45]** much used uh in in in Europe until now uh because um in the end doing your own sore analysis gives always uh much more flexibility in in terms of how you can design your your operation we use the exact same PD for one case um where we uh were able to get the BCA on board to to allow it but we had to have a person in the field standing by with a remote control as a backup which still doesn't make any sense in the commercial all right so I think we are uh at the end of our discussion uh we covered many topics uh from the operational to the technical side and yeah to me it was a very interesting discussion I hope it was the same for everybody that joined us today so I'd like to thank uh the organizers Fleet base for yeah inviting us and organizing this uh discussion and also all the panelists Nica ludovik bu and Irving

**[42:53]** thanks a lot for being here you provided a really valuable contribution and uh so that's all on on our side I guess uh and I hope to see you again in the next events from uh from fleit base so thank you and enjoy the rest of the NestGen sessions goodbye thank you thank youco bye thank