The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has released a working draft of the “Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Version 1.0).” The draft is available for public review and comment.
The roadmap is being developed by the institute’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Standardization Collaborative (UASSC). The release follows the discussion of a preliminary draft at a UASSC plenary meeting held Sept. 20 in Washington, D.C. A report of that meeting is available here.
ANSI specifically invites comments that represent critical revisions and/or needed clarifications on what is presented in the document. Comments on the draft roadmap may be submitted to [email protected] by close of business on Oct. 29. The UASSC working groups will reconvene thereafter to address the comments and finalize the document for publication.
According to ANSI, the draft roadmap identifies published and in-development standards for drones, defines where gaps exist, and recommends additional standardization activity to address the gaps. Issues are addressed across the following areas: airworthiness; flight operations; personnel training, qualifications and certification; operations for critical infrastructure inspections and commercial services; and public safety operations. Each identified gap – where an existing standard does not address the issue in question – includes a priority level for producing a standard and identifies organizations that can perform the work.
ANSI says the roadmap is intended to clarify the current standardization landscape, minimize duplication of effort among standards developing organizations, help inform standards participation decision-making and ultimately facilitate the growth of the UAS market. The UASSC itself is not developing standards.
“The UASSC has made tremendous progress over the past year to articulate the standards needed to support the civil, commercial and public safety market for drones,” says ANSI’s president and CEO, S. Joe Bhatia. “We welcome the comments of the broader community to help inform the final roadmap.”
ANSI’s facilitation of the UASSC is supported in part by contributions from the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate, the ASTM International/National Fire Protection Association Joint Working Group, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, and others.
The draft roadmap and related materials can be downloaded as follows:
- Working Draft Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Version 1.0)
- Comment Form
- Instructions for Using Comment Form
