This article outlines SkeyDrone’s U-space vision for 2025, as articulated by our Managing Director and Head of Regulatory Affairs. Their forward-thinking perspective highlights how a harmonized, efficient, and safe U-space ecosystem can unlock the full potential of drone operations, paving the way for innovative applications and sustainable growth in the drone economy.

Since 26 January 2023, EU Member States can designate U-space airspace areas to enable increasingly complex drones operations – beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)  – supported by air traffic services provided by certified U-space Service Providers (USSP). 

As the drone industry expands, the implementation of U-space – a dedicated framework that includes digital services to support safe, efficient and secure access to airspace for large numbers of drones – becomes increasingly vital. SkeyDrone – on track to becoming one of the first certified USSPs in Europe – envisions U-space as a key enabler for the future of uncrewed aviation and a crucial framework for the safe and efficient coordination with Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP), responsible for guaranteeing the safety of crewed aviation. However, the successful implementation of U-space depends on several critical factors, including market development, airspace redesign, and a robust law enforcement framework.

Market Development: A Growing Ecosystem

PWC predicts that the global drone market will double in size by 2029, with an annual growth rate of 14.4%. This growth is expected to propel the number of drone operations to an estimated 28 million worldwide, underscoring the urgent need for robust uncrewed traffic management systems to ensure the safe, efficient, and sustainable integration of uncrewed aircraft into the airspace.

SkeyDrone believes that this growth can only truly occur with such a dedicated regulatory framework that enables the safe integration of crewed and uncrewed operations. We will only be successful in answering the increasing demand for drone applications such as deliveries and infrastructure inspections, if we are able to safely transition to an airspace where multiple BVLOS flights can take place in a simultaneous manner. That’s exactly why U-space was conceived. Today, in the pre U-space era, BVLOS flights are still considered as too unsafe and often only receive the necessary approvals in test environments or isolated parts of the airspace.

Across the European Union, over 1,8 million drone operators are currently registered and national Civil Aviation Authorities have issued 4.300 operational declarations and authorisations in the Specific category. The total number of actual drone flights is however significantly higher, as multiple flights might occur under the same operational authorisation and also all flights conducted in the widely-used Open category need to be added to that number.

In Belgium, nearly 30.000 UAS operators are registered and around 760 operational declarations and authorisations in the Specific category have been recorded since 2021. These numbers continue to rise year after year, reflecting the growing adoption of drone technology.

Driven by this demand and the conviction that U-space is the proper solution, candidate USSPs and U-space airspaces are gradually emerging. A survey conducted by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in January 2024 shows there are already 11 USSP candidates and more than 25 potential U-space airspaces within the European Union.

The Need for a Consistent Airspace Redesign

At the heart of the need for designation of U-space airspace is the redesign of the lower airspace, where most drone operations will occur. Prior to the 2020 European drone legislation, airspace design was mainly driven by the needs of conventional civil and military airspace users and the mitigation of air risk associated to crewed aviation. With the advent of drones and this new regulation came a new type of airspace, called geozones. Next to air risk, these geozones also address ground risk, privacy concerns and environmental protection. Nevertheless, none of these measures take into account the risks attached to collisions between drones.

Enter U-space. However, merely adding U-space as yet another type of geozone will only increase an already high level of complexity, jeopardizing in the end the scalable growth of drone operations. Therefore U-space should serve as a catalyst for rationalising the organisation of the lower airspace, fostering market growth.

Without a coherent strategy, we risk ending up with a patchwork of disconnected geozones. Let’s illustrate this with the example of the Port of Antwerp in Belgium – an area where today multiple partially overlapping geozones co-exist (see illustration below): the Port of Antwerp geozone, the controlled airspace of Antwerp airport, a private heliport, a private and a personal aerodrome and next to that the nuclear site of Doel. These geozones each have their own access conditions, procedures and a dedicated geozone manager.

Let’s now have a look at the first U-space airspace candidate in Belgium: the Port of Antwerp geozone, excluding the overlap with the Antwerp airport CTR (see dashed line on the image above). While this is a restricted area in uncontrolled airspace, with little to no crewed aviation activity, the management of the airspace could still be very complicated if the U-space airspace is merely added as an additional geozone on top of the existing geozones. That would mean that next to the USSP granting flight authorisations based on deconfliction of flight plans, the existing geozone managers stay in charge of authorising flights in their respective geozones based on their own set of flight authorisation rules and parameters. Consequently, drone operators would need to request flight authorisation to the USSP, as well as to the different geozone managers. The latter merely to be able to control the access and to know who’s flying where, without taking the responsibility to deconflict flights (as that is left to certified USSPs).

Today, in order to manage their own individual flight authorisations, geozone managers often make investments to set up a local UTM system, while their actual needs are in most cases limited to defining and controlling the geozone access conditions (i.e., determining which drones can fly and under which circumstances) and keeping an eye on the actual flights, including whether they comply with their approved flight plan conditions.

In the new U-space era, all of this can be achieved by receiving real-time information from all USSPs (potentially via a single Common Information Service Provider (CISP)) and revising the airspace structure. In this revised structure, the access conditions defined by the local geozone managers could be incorporated into the U-space metadata as operational restrictions.

Therefore SkeyDrone advocates for a standardized European approach on how each Member State should consciously integrate U-space airspace in an overarching geozone strategy. This approach would streamline operations, reduce redundancies, and ultimately enhance safety and clarity for all airspace users.

Need for an effective Law Enforcement Framework

Another major challenge facing U-space implementation is law enforcement. U-space assumes all drone operators comply with the regulation whereby each USSP has the responsibility to know where his own customers are flying and to exchange that info with other USSPs who are providing services in the same airspace. This way everybody knows where all drones are flying.

But what about the ones who don’t comply? Since the number of drone flights are increasing, so are unauthorised operations – whether due to ignorance or malicious intent. As there is no obligation for USSPs to invest in non-cooperative drone detection systems, a strict law enforcement framework is key.

In Belgium alone, ANSP skeyes – acting as geozone manager for controlled airspace – has authorised 15.462 drone flights in 2023, marking a 24% rise from 2022. The Port of Antwerp-Bruges has authorised over 5.000 drone flights between March 2021 and February 2024. Yet SkeyDrone’s continuously growing drone detection system has shown that in many geozones, these authorised flights are only a fraction of the total drone activity.

The introduction of U-space services like geo-awareness and flight authorisation can help to mitigate this problem by providing operators with real-time information about no-fly zones and airspace restrictions. However, these measures must be supported by stricter law enforcement policies. By leveraging technologies such as remote identification and drone detection systems, authorities can ensure that only authorised drone flights occur, reducing risks and improving overall safety.

Conclusion: A Collaborative Path Forward

For U-space to succeed, it requires a well-coordinated approach that balances market growth, airspace redesign, and law enforcement. SkeyDrone believes in a future where drones operate seamlessly alongside crewed aircraft, benefiting industries and communities alike. However, this vision can only be realized through strong partnerships between regulators, service providers, operators, and law enforcement agencies.

The time to act is now. By taking a proactive stance on U-space implementation, we can avoid a fragmented airspace and instead build a unified, safe, and efficient system that supports the next generation of aviation.

To learn more about U-space, watch our on-demand training session.