Flightless drones – Kommersant

The ban on drone flights in 40 Russian regions, introduced amid a drone attack on the Kremlin, will cost the industry up to 10 billion rubles. and the market will roll back to the level of 2018, developers and equipment manufacturers interviewed by Kommersant believe. In Moscow and St. Petersburg alone, losses could amount to 1.5 billion rubles. Given the low effectiveness of total bans in the fight against intruders, experts propose to work out the introduction of defendants to control the route and urgently interrupt the flight of drones within a month.

The total losses from the ban on drone flights in Moscow, the Moscow region and St. Petersburg could amount to about 1.5 billion rubles if the ban lasts until the end of the year, major market participants interviewed by Kommersant believe. This is the amount of lost profits for manufacturers and operators of drones selling services in the field of aerial photography and monitoring – for developers at construction sites for 3D modeling and marketing surveys, as well as for land cadastral registration, for monitoring the condition of industrial facilities, power lines and remote sensing of the Earth.

Not counting the capital regions, losses due to bans across the country may exceed 10 billion rubles. in 2023, Nikita Danilov, CEO of Fly Dron, provides an industry assessment.

Most of the regions began to restrict drone flights from October 2022 (see Kommersant dated November 8, 2022). As of May 4, the ban on the use of drones is already in effect in 40 regions, the latest of which was Chuvashia. A day earlier, restrictions were introduced in Moscow, the Moscow region and St. Petersburg, which was explained by the desire to “prevent unauthorized use of UAVs” against the backdrop of a drone attack on the Kremlin. Experts in an interview with Kommersant criticize the bans because they do not lead to the prevention of attacks and drones launched for terrorist purposes fly without obtaining permits. At the same time, the drones of law-abiding operators in the Russian Federation remain on the ground, although it is they who often increase security by monitoring the area, experts explain: “Civilian drones help to see a car next to which criminals cut a pipe or mine rails.”

The latest restrictions in the two metropolitan regions will not bring serious financial losses to the market, Gleb Babintsev, the head of the Aeronext profile association, believes: “And until May 3, flights required permission from the security department in Moscow and the transport committee in St. Petersburg, so the ban did not change the current procedure “.

But the indirect negative impact will be enormous, since everyone is looking at Moscow, and this can “increase the domino effect” and speed up the introduction of restrictions in those regions that have not yet done so. “The ban introduced in October in the first ten southern regions was estimated by companies operating in these regions at about 3 billion rubles. lost revenue,” the expert illustrates. Given that today there are 40 such regions, if the ban is extended until the end of the year, the market volume will return to the level of five years ago, Gleb Babintsev believes. The market growth rate in 2022 has already decreased by more than 10 percentage points compared to 2021: if at the end of 2021 the market grew by 23% compared to the previous year, then in 2022 the market added only 11%. In 2023, the community expected growth to almost 18 billion rubles, notes the head of Aeronext: now, according to optimistic estimates, the market will remain at the level of 2022, and in the worst scenario of a total ban across the country, there will be a rollback to the level of 2018 – this is a little more 3 billion rubles

The agricultural sector will suffer the most significant losses, says Maxim Chizhov, CEO of Agrimax Aero. According to his calculations, the agricultural industry will lose 2.4 billion rubles in total, of which 900 million rubles will be lost revenue and losses directly from farms, another 300 million will be lost revenue and losses of developers, 800 million rubles – drone manufacturers and 400 million rubles. – loss of operators and operators of drones for agriculture.

Drones are looking for a defendant

To save the market, according to Gleb Babintsev, a set of organizational measures and technological solutions is needed, “which will, firstly, detect a properly equipped unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), secondly, determine its route and, finally, ensure the sending of service commands outside crew for landing. If landing commands are not followed, the drone can be destroyed. The structures protecting the fuel and energy facilities, according to a similar principle, have the right to counteract only over the security zone of such facilities, which is insufficient, the expert explains. In his opinion, a unified interdepartmental procedure for coordinating flights and ensuring their safety is needed, but “today such a procedure does not exist.”

The solution should be the installation of transponder sensors that will not interfere with large aircraft and will be under the control of specialists from the ground. Classical transponders broadcasting on the aviation frequency 1090ES are useless because they clog it with their signals, create interference and do not provide the functionality necessary for flight safety, Gleb Babintsev believes. The only way out can be the use of integrated on-board systems, which should transmit and receive from other air traffic participants the flight plan, the actual route and have a feedback channel with the external crew for an urgent landing on command. There are no such ready-made solutions, but all the necessary technologies are available, the expert adds, and if there is political will, the problem can be solved in a couple of months.

Technically, flight monitoring functions are relatively easy to implement for heavy UAVs with standard secondary radar transponders and ADS-B on board, notes Vladislav Shifrin, Advisor to the General Director of the Aeroscript Research Center: “Especially in those areas where there is already coverage of air traffic control cooperative surveillance systems (ATC).”

For light drones, ICAO does not recommend installing transmission facilities at a frequency of 1090 MHz, Mr. Shifrin recalls: “For such light drones, the problem is solved by integrating the drone into a digital flight information platform.” Now Aeroscript is testing a similar system with manufacturers. Together with protocols for UAS integration, it implements services that allow you to receive information from all known sources of ATC surveillance, combine data from different sources into single tracks, and distribute surveillance data to external pilots and authorized bodies. That is, each user is provided only with the information for which level he is authorized.

The Russian authorities could use the experience of regulating drones from India, Andrey Patrakov, founder of the RunAvia service, adds: “The principle of the DigitalSky state system is that the legal flight of a drone can continue only if the drone is registered in this state system and is displayed online in it.” Accordingly, any other drone is recognized as an intruder and can be suppressed by means of electronic warfare or electronic warfare “and, depending on the degree of risk of the threat, including being shot down.” The Remote ID system in India is mandatory for all drones almost without exception, he notes: “Technically this is implemented through the mandatory installation of transponders.”

Some of Kommersant’s interlocutors in the industry call equipping all drones with trackers with a forced stop option as an alternative to bans (see Kommersant dated April 20). But such a decision can create a dangerous situation, since the command to stop can be initiated not by the operator, but by an unprepared person in the event of a drone interception, says Alexander Shipovsky, head of the Clear Sky company. He notes that some commercial aircraft-type drones can fly at speeds of 150 km/h and weigh several kilograms: “Interfering with the control of such a device can backfire.” Therefore, the company believes that a forced landing should be carried out by a remote pilot on demand.

Aigul Abdullina