Drone Standards: From 'Blank Slate' to '3D Blueprint'

Since its inception,the drone has provided people with the convenience of a God's-eye view and spatial reuse,but the ensuing safety issues have also attracted much attention.

In fact,drones,like cars and airplanes,are not inherently wrong.What they urgently need is a reasonable and comprehensive standard system that allows for sufficient development space for users and businesses while ensuring flight safety.To this end,eight ministries jointly issued the"Construction Guide for the Standard System of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems"to help drones fly higher and farther in the future.

Today,the public perception of drones seems to have subtly changed—"illegal flights"and incidents of interference with civil aviation have repeatedly pushed them into the spotlight,and much of the news about them is related to causing trouble.

But this cannot be entirely blamed on the drones.After all,they are still in their infancy,lacking both rules to follow and standards to adhere to;it's no wonder they are"unruly".

To change this situation,the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology,the State Standardization Administration,the Ministry of Science and Technology,and other eight ministries recently jointly issued the"Construction Guide for the Standard System of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems(2017-2018 Edition)"(hereinafter referred to as the"Guide").This means that drones are about to enter the era of standardization.

Rapid Development Forces the Issuance of Standards

How fast is the drone industry developing?A set of data can illustrate the point.

According to statistics,in 2015,China's drone sales were nearly 100,000 units.By 2016,China already had about 500 drone manufacturing companies,with drone sales reaching 390,000 units and a total output value of 26 billion yuan.And it is still growing rapidly,with an estimated sales volume of over 3 million domestically produced drones in 2019.

These drones will fly into the fields of aerial photography,surveying and mapping,agricultural and forestry pest control,logistics,fire fighting,navigation,and power,bringing new vitality to various industries.

Regarding the issuance of the"Guide",Ke Yubao,executive secretary-general of the China Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association,used the word"forced".

"The drone industry is developing rapidly and has a wide range of applications;if standards are not issued,it will be difficult to regulate it."Ke Yubao said.Taking the incident of drones interfering with civil aviation as an example,data shows that in 2015,there were 4 incidents of drones interfering with civil aviation flights nationwide,23 in 2016,and over 40 in the first half of 2017 alone."Frequent drone safety incidents have left people with a negative impression of drones as being"unusable,ineffective,and unusable."Shu Zhenjie,deputy chief engineer of the China Aviation Comprehensive Technology Research Institute and executive secretary-general of the International Unmanned Aircraft Systems Standardization Association(preparatory),is the main drafter of the"Guide".In his view,this not only causes great difficulties for the government,enterprises,and users,but also seriously affects the healthy development of the drone industry.Behind the frequent occurrence of drone safety incidents,in addition to reasons such as imperfect relevant laws and regulations,inadequate market supervision,and unclear responsibilities of management entities,there is another important factor:the lack of standards.

"Currently,apart from military drone standards,domestic civil drone standards are basically blank."Shu Zhenjie believes that in this situation,the quality of drone products lacks assurance,and technical requirements are difficult to unify,which will ultimately restrict industry development while affecting national security and public safety.

Shu Zhenjie told the Science and Technology Daily reporter that although relevant national ministries and commissions have successively formulated more than 20 policies and regulations related to drones,there are too few existing drone standards to provide sufficient support for the implementation of these policies and regulations.

Comprehensive System,Covering the Entire Life Cycle

After the issuance of the"Guide",this"basically blank"field will usher in a three-dimensional blueprint.

By 2020,a sound and complete standard system for unmanned aerial vehicle systems will be basically established,with more than 300 standards for unmanned aerial vehicle systems formulated or revised."According to the"Guide",these standards will not only cover various types of drones,such as micro,light,small,and large,outside of military use,and various application industries such as aerial photography,surveying and mapping,power,agriculture,and security,but also cover the entire life cycle of drones.

The so-called full life cycle includes all aspects from drone research and development,registration,identification,manufacturing,circulation,operation,and scrapping."Currently,these links already exist in the entire drone industry,so the standard system should also cover them all."Shu Zhenjie explained that this is also based on market demand and cannot be considered"premature".

Based on the above,the"Guide"divides the drone standard system into four parts:basic standards,management standards,technical standards,and industry application standards.Within each part,further subdivisions are made,ultimately forming a complex standard system framework.

Shu Zhenjie introduced that the drone standard system built by the"Guide"actively implements the"Deepening Reform Plan for Standardization Work"issued by the State Council last year,so there are many new highlights in it.

"Previously,many standard systems were mainly based on technical standards,while the"Guide"starts from meeting market needs and supporting government supervision,adding two very important parts."Shu Zhenjie told the Science and Technology Daily reporter that one part is management standards,which aim to support the implementation and landing of relevant drone laws and regulations;the other part is industry application standards,which aim to better meet the needs of the drone market.

In addition,in the next few years,among the more than 300 drone standards that will be intensively issued,you will see many group standards and enterprise standards.This is very different from the past standard system construction,which focused too much on national standards and industry standards.

"National standards often take one or two years from approval to project establishment,which cannot fully meet the needs of rapid market development."Shu Zhenjie explained that group standards formulated by societies,associations,and enterprise alliances can be launched in about half a year,which can effectively improve the market supply of drone standards.

High Difficulty,Achieving Goals in Two Stages

"To be honest,the work to be done to build the huge system proposed in the"Guide"is still very arduous."Shu Zhenjie frankly admitted.

In Shu Zhenjie's view,drones belong to an emerging industry,and there was little relevant research and standard accumulation in the past,so it basically has to start from scratch.In addition,the formulation of standards is the product of multi-party coordination,and drones have a wide variety of types,involve many industries,and have many regulatory departments,so the construction of their standard system requires a lot of coordination work.

Fortunately,the three-dimensional blueprint depicted in the"Guide"is not intended to be achieved in one fell swoop,but rather follows the principle of"demand-driven,urgent needs first".

The"Guide"proposes to complete the construction of the standard system in two stages:the first stage is 2017-2018,and the focus of this stage is to formulate a batch of urgently needed market standards to support supervision;the second stage is 2019-2020,with the goal of basically improving the drone standard system and accelerating the upgrading of China's standards to international standards.

This"arduous"work has already begun.The"Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Standard System Table"attached to the"Guide"contains a lot of information.

This table lists a total of 267 drone standards.Among them,16 standards,including"Classification and Grading of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems"and"Requirements for Naming and Coding of Civil Unmanned Aircraft System Models,"are marked as"Project Approved."Many other standards,including"Identity Recognition Requirements for Unmanned Aircraft Systems,"are marked as"Urgent Need for Development,"while the rest are marked as"To Be Developed."

"This year,we aim to complete about 10 national and industry standards,and about 50 next year."Shu Zhenjie revealed that by 2020,a total of 150 to 180 national and industry standards may be issued,with the rest being group standards and enterprise standards.

Ke Yubao told the Science and Technology Daily reporter that China is already at the forefront of the world in the development of drone standards.For example,the Civil Aviation Administration of China(CAAC)released a draft of the industry standard"Data Specification for Unmanned Aircraft Cloud System Interface"on July 11.Currently,no other countries have issued such standards."The domestic drone market is developing rapidly,and the demand for standards is strong,so the response to standard development is also relatively fast."Shu Zhenjie introduced that the International Organization for Standardization(ISO)has already initiated the development of four drone standards,including"Grading and Classification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems,"with China taking the lead in the development of this standard."In the future,domestic drone standards are very likely to lead international standards."Shu Zhenjie said.