UVS International is the oldest and widest Association of stakeholders interested on unmanned vehicles, established in Europe but with global membership. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are in its scope. UVS International promotes the operational applications of drones, including the small UAS for civil uses.

The forthcoming CivOps Conference 2018 will in fact focus on civil operations and on the two major obstacles for their further development:

1. Incomplete, too cumbersome, limited, uncertain or fragmented Regulations; and

2. Convincing the society that civil drone operations are sufficiently safe for third parties on the ground or in the air, as well as for critical infrastructures.

The project REAL will contribute to the event presenting its findings, not only in relation to the benefits that EGNOS may bring to drone operations, but on safety assessment of the considered operations (i.e. use of drones during firefighting operations or overflying critical power stations) which are particularly demanding.

REAL has been one of the first projects in the world applying the Specific Operations Safety Assessment (SORA) methodologies developed by the Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (JARUS) and it will be happy to share with colleagues its observations on this methodology which, although attractive, is not yet fully consolidated.