Pei Yu, a reporter of this newspaper, reported from Beijing
In the emerging field of civilian unmanned aerial vehicles, the competition between China and the United States is not only reflected in technology research and development, but also in regulatory and industrial policies. While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) insisted on airworthiness regulation of the field within the existing framework, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Civil Aviation Administration") seemed to be "one step ahead" in terms of regulatory matching innovation.
On April 7, the Civil Aviation Administration of China solicited opinions on the Classification of Distributed Operation Levels of Civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Draft for Solicitation of Comments) (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comments"). According to the degree of automation, this document divides the unmanned aerial vehicle system into 6 levels of AL-0 to AL-5, and corresponds to different technical requirements. At the same time, it also clarifies the safety level standards for the distributed operation of unmanned aerial vehicle systems.
The so-called distributed operation generally refers to the operation mode that calculates and stores not on the same processor, but is distributed on multiple processors. Applied to the field of unmanned aerial vehicles, that is, through the background computing system to direct the flight of unmanned aerial vehicles, from large unmanned aerial vehicles to small aircraft applied to logistics and distribution, the application of distributed operations is becoming more and more extensive.
Four civil unmanned aerial vehicle companies participated in the preparation of the Draft for Comments, including EHang Intelligence, Feng bird aviation, Longxing unmanned aerial vehicle, and Hangzhou Xun ant. In addition, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the China Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Civil Aviation Science and Technology Research Institute of China, and the Beihang Unmanned Systems Research Institute also participated in the drafting of the Draft for Comments.
The reporter learned that at present, there is no standard for the safe operation of distributed unmanned aerial vehicle systems at home and abroad. It is based on this that the Civil Aviation Administration believes that it is necessary to form a unified and effective industry guidance standard on the basis of practice. This is also one of the important reasons why four enterprises, including EHang Intelligent, participated in the drafting of the Draft for Comments.
Safety is the "overriding" factor. A senior industry insider told the China Business Daily reporter that in the distributed operation of unmanned aerial vehicle systems, the correlation between system safety and the ability level of "pilots" has become weaker, so simply using the traditional way of issuing licenses to individual pilots can no longer guarantee the safety of unmanned aerial vehicle system operations.
It is a common practice in the field of automatic driving to divide the level to determine the corresponding standards, and the automatic driving of automobiles is to form standards on the basis of classification and regulate research and development and operation. A similar approach is used for civilian unmanned aerial vehicles, where the larger the number in the six levels of AL-0 to AL-5, the higher the degree of automation of the driving system.
People who understand the situation told reporters that the above-mentioned classification of levels mainly considers four factors: whether the automatic flight system can complete the flight mission execution; whether it can complete the detection and response of operational risk factors; whether it can complete the flight mission takeover; and whether there is a limit to the design and operation range. The division of the six levels of AL-0 to AL-5 is to identify and evaluate the automation level of unmanned aerial vehicles according to these four factors.
In the AL-0 class, the crew is responsible for mission execution and operational risk factor detection and response, and the unmanned aerial vehicle operates under designed operating conditions. A technical leader at a startup in the field said that this is the driver driving the drone through the system operation in the background. However, he explained that in the AL-0 class, unmanned aerial vehicles are not "uninstructed", but contain some automated functions, such as hovering.
The AL-1 class is jointly controlled by the crew and the automatic flight system, and jointly undertakes the detection and response of operational risk factors. When the automatic system can no longer fly, it is taken over by the unit. "At this level, the crew can take over control of the unmanned aerial vehicle at any time." The above-mentioned technical person in charge explained to reporters.
When the automation level reaches the AL-2 level, the automatic flight control system can control the flight process without the need to control it with the crew, and the detection and response of operational risk factors is still completed by the crew and the automatic flight control system. Similar to the AL-1 class, the crew can take over control when the automatic flight system cannot continue to fly; the crew can take over the flight at any time throughout the flight.
As the level increases, the scope of the role of automatic flight control systems expands. At the AL-3 level, operational risk factors are divided into "internal" and "external". The detection and response of internal risk factors is responsible for the automatic flight control system; the detection and response of external risk factors is the responsibility of the crew. In addition, when the unmanned aerial vehicle system can no longer perform the flight mission, the crew can be requested to take over control. When the unit does not respond, the system can automatically enter the minimal risk state. The AL-0 to AL-3 levels are the same, and the crew can take over control at any time during flight.
In the AL-4 class, the automatic flight control system will be independently responsible for operating the detection and response of risk factors. When the unmanned aerial vehicle system can no longer operate, the system can re-plan the flight mission or automatically enter the minimum risk state without adding additional operational risks; the crew may apply for takeover control during the flight, and when the system judges that the takeover will increase the safety risk, the transfer of control can be suspended.
The AL-5 level is the highest level of automation. In this level, the detection and response of risk factors, the emergency response method in the event that the unmanned aerial vehicle system can no longer operate the flight, and the method of the crew applying for control of the flight are the same as the AL-4 level. The biggest difference at this level is that it operates under any flight-ready conditions without design operating range restrictions.
The above-mentioned industry insiders explained to reporters that the AL-0 level is "operated under design operating conditions", while AL-1~ AL-4 is operated within the "design operation range". The difference between "conditions" and "ranges" is that the former is a specific "point", and the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles can only operate if these "points" are reached; "range" is an "interval", that is, within this interval, unmanned aerial vehicles can operate.
"In the AL-5 level, there is no restriction on the scope of design operation, indicating the highest degree of automation, of course, this is only a technical level of capability, in practice, there will be commercial and regulatory factors to impose restrictions on unmanned flight." He told reporters.
In the view of the above-mentioned technical leader, the degree of automation from AL-0 to AL-1 is low, the degree of automation from AL-2 to AL-3 is medium, and the degree of automation from AL-4 to AL-5 is a higher degree of automation.
At present, the use of Chinese UAVs is very extensive, and there are large-scale replications in branch/terminal logistics, inspection, urban management and other aspects. The Civil Aviation Administration believes that the establishment of distributed operation standards will lay a solid foundation for the sustainable development of the 100-billion-level UAV industry application market, and greatly promote the establishment and improvement of the industry supervision system for the safe operation of distributed unmanned aerial vehicle systems under the premise of ensuring public safety, so as to better cope with the challenges brought by the current new UAV operation mode to industry management.
The reporter learned that after the implementation of this standard, the Civil Aviation Administration suggested that unmanned aircraft manufacturers, unmanned aerial vehicle operators, unmanned aerial vehicle service providers, etc. establish their own safe operation system in distributed operation in accordance with the content of the standard, and at the same time continuously improve and enhance the automation technology level of unmanned aerial vehicle systems.
Source: China Business Daily
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