AESA participates in the plenary of the international JARUS group to advance the safe integration of UAS in aviation

Monday, June 17, 2024

Madrid, 17 June 2024 (AESA)

Kazakhstan hosted the first face-to-face meeting of 2024 of the JARUS (Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems) expert group, representing National Aviation Authorities (NAAs) and regional aviation security organisations. The main objective of JARUS is to recommend technical, safety and operational requirements to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into aviation.

AESA participated in this plenary session represented by Roberto Gándara, head of the UAS Division of the Agency, who attended together with other industry experts and representatives from more than 30 countries to present the progress in the working groups.

During the interventions of the Auto ConOPS group, AESA presented the use cases of automation of highly autonomous operations in low-risk scenarios, through the evaluation methodology of JARUS Automation. It was also approved to use these use cases in a working group to advance SORA 3.0, the newrisk assessment for UAS (Specific Operations Risk Assessment).

Along with R. Gándara, Alberto Gaspar, technician of the AESA UAS team, also attended the plenary, who has participated in the development of the most technological part of the general methodology arising from the work carried out with the use cases. This point has been key for the JARUS methodology to be an advance in the possibility of offering aviation safety considerations when approving a highly autonomous operation.

Alberto Gaspar y Roberto Gándara (AESA) en el plenario 2024 de JARUS

Alberto Gaspar and Roberto Gándara (ESAA) in the 2024 plenary session of JARUS

In addition, Diego Zaglul, member of our UAS team, has also participated in the process of adapting the JARUS automation methodology with real cases, through the completely autonomous inspection of power lines and parcel delivery.

During the plenary, held from 13 to 17 May, the SORA 2.5 package was also adopted, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia were welcomed as new JARUS Member States, with 69 States; and a MoU was signed between JARUS and ACI World.

The participation of AESA in this plenary session has meant for Spain an international recognition of the work carried out in the field of aviation safety in the field of UAS.