PRE2018 3 Group4

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1. Root
2. Notes
3. Initial ideas
4. State of the Art
5. Project setup
6. Present situation
7. Solutions

0LAUK0 - 2018/2019 - Q3 - group 4

Group members

Name	Student ID	Major
Jort de Bokx	1050214	Software Science
Sander de Bruin	1006147	Software Science
Stijn Derks	1008002	Software Science
Martin de Quincey	1007047	Software Science and Applied Mathematics
Nick van de Waterlaat	1009357	Software Science

Introduction

The goal of this wiki page is to show a study and analysis of a robotic subject. This research is an assignment of the course Robots Everywhere (0LAUK0). For this project, students work in a group of 5 choosing a subject in the core of robotics to work on, thereby making sure the USE aspects are leading. As is normal in a Wiki, multiple pages will be used rather than considering one extremely long page. Make sure to explore all subpages contained under this page.

Notes

Initial ideas

General problem

State of the Art

Project setup

Specific problem description

As described in the `Approach' Section, we expected the societal issue of unwanted UAV presence to be divisible into multiple subcategories. Following our initial literature study, we indeed found this to be the case. There are many axes along which the problem space can be divided. For example, we might consider a division based on the nature of the cause of a drone incident, and as such whether it was caused by human failure or technical failure. Another possible distinction can be given based on the specific part of society that is impacted, whether it be the privacy of individuals when a camera-equipped UAV flies over their backyard, or the safety of a group of users when there are UAVs present around an airfield. When we consider the existing legal regulations, another commonly occurring division is that between human-controlled and autonomous UAVs.

This realisation leads us to formulate a more specific problem definition with a smaller scope. In our study, we consider possible deterrents against unwanted UAV presence around airports. This includes studying the current legal regulations considering UAVs, both in general and more explicitly considering airports. The term UAV is also divisible into multiple subcategories, for this study we take all sub-types of UAV into account. These specific sub-types will be further discussed in the following Section.

Specific USE aspects

In this section, we consider the users, society, and enterprise when considering the specific problem description.

Users

When we take a look at the users in the more specific context of considering solutions against unwanted UAVs at and around airports, we see a shift in the types of users compared to the previously defined users in the more general setting. We see that mainly non-governmental organizations such as airports and airlines are the users of this more specific setting instead of the government, which was one of the users in our general setting. These types of users are also part of the use aspect 'enterprise' and will be elaborated on in more detail in the corresponding section below. Indirectly, also passengers of flights are users of solutions against unwanted UAVs at and around airports, as passengers benefit from such solutions since they just want to be able to travel without any hindrance. Again passengers of flights is a type of users that overlaps with the use aspect 'society' and will be elaborated on in more detail in the section below. Lastly, companies with the intent/goal to intercept or detect aerial objects such as UAVs are, to some extent, users of solutions against unwanted UAVs.

Society

Let us take a closer look at how this specific problem description is relevant when we consider society with respect to airports. If a UAVs enter the air space of an airport, aeroplanes are not allowed to land at the airport nor are they allowed to leave the airport. Therefore, airports have placed a ban on the usage of UAVs around the airport in order to make sure that aeroplanes can still land and leave the airport. As one might already know, a tremendous number of people visit airports every day. In 2017, Schiphol airport, located in Amsterdam, already counted 68 515 425 passengers. One can already imagine how enormous the consequences can be if this airport cannot be used for a few days. This means that if a UAVs flies by for whatever reason, a large number of people will not be able to travel. This results not only in many angry travellers but also in airport companies that have to compensate these travellers for the delays introduced by these UAVs.

From a societal perspective, this would mean that all travellers have a risk of their flight being delayed, which is undesirable due to many reasons as elaborated on previously. As of now, we have only considered the situation where a UAV simply flies by but what if this UAV has malicious intentions. For example, what if this UAV has been weaponised and is used by terrorists or a specific individual with malicious intentions and is used to wreak havoc at the airport. Then, these weaponised UAVs could be extremely dangerous as they could result in mass-killings. This would be a colossal disaster, and this should be avoided at all cost. A disaster is not only bound to happen when we consider weaponised UAVs. A disaster could also occur when the systems of the airport do not detect one of these UAVs. This UAV could then end up damaging the aeroplane, which could result in perilous situations. For example, we can expect disastrous situations when a UAV gets stuck in the motor of an aeroplane. All things considered, UAVs cannot only be hazardous to society when operated by malicious attackers, but they can also introduce many annoyances.

Enterprise

When we restrict the USE case analysis to only deterrents against unwanted UAVs or drones around airports, the enterprise aspect of the use analysis becomes more concrete. The main type of enterprise that is under risk is the airport branch. The total revenue of the aviation industry in 2018 alone is a staggering 821 billion USD, so there are huge amounts of money at risk here. The current protocol is to suspend all flights of the airport by 30 minutes, the average lifespan of a drone. This means that, should drones occur often enough, all flights will be suspended for an indefinite amount of time. This will, of course, have huge costs for multiple branches of the aviation industry. The three most notable branches in our opinion are the airports, the airlines and the companies who use aviation to transport goods. For these three enterprise branches, we will analyse the consequences of such an unwanted drone near an airport.

Airports

Airports suffer the largest loss in the case of such a drone in the airspace, which makes sense since it is where the problem is located. The airports suffer huge financial losses mainly through three different ways. First and foremost, no profits can be made when no planes fly. For example, the drone incident at Gatwick Airport caused a loss of over 50 million English Pounds. This was caused by suspending all flights, which were just over 400, over the total duration of 33 hours. The airport suffers a huge blow to their reputation. So the financial hourly losses are huge for airports when flights must be suspended due to drones in the area. Furthermore, should one airport consistently suffer from the presence of unwanted drones, both airlines and travellers might opt to choose a different airport. The other airport might be farther away, but it will be a more reliable airport. This would result in a drop in total passengers at the airport.

Airlines

Airlines such as RyanAir, KLM or EasyJet also suffer huge losses during the event of a drone suspending or cancelling flights. The airlines are the companies actually offering flights to travellers. What also causes more losses for airlines is that they have to compensate the travellers for the delay or cancellation of their flights. By European Law, airlines are required to provide travellers with enough food, drinks, and nightly accommodations for as long as necessary. For a large sudden suspension of flights at one place, which is the case in our problem, this also becomes an enormously difficult task for an airline. If the airline would not act accordingly, the airline could also suffer from a huge reputation loss, resulting in travellers not flying with that airline anymore. Furthermore, the travellers are also eligible for financial compensation by European Law. Airports.

Another aspect of this branch are the employees of the airlines. Apart from the company as a whole, the employees, such as flight attendants and pilots, suffer greatly from such an airline 'shutdown'. This is because of the way that the employees get paid. They do get a baseline salary, but the most salary they receive come from the hours that they are actually in the plane either flying or aiding passengers. If the planes do not fly, they suffer from a huge salary cut, which means that the whole branch of airline employees have financial losses.

Companies who transport goods via aviation

Another enterprise that suffers from delaying and cancelling of flights at an airport are transport companies. In general, these goods are transported with different airplanes than passenger airplanes, but cargo is usually transported with passengers in the same airplane. In addition, cargo airplanes also frequently fly to airports just for packages, since restaurants, shops, e.g. are not necessary there, decreasing airport costs. However, these airports can also be subjected to an unwanted drone in the airspace. Again, the protocol is that the airplane will not land and thus will be either delayed or cancelled. This can have dire consequences for such companies. The delay of their goods usually set off a chain reaction of consequent delays, which can be devastating if timing is crucial. In conclusion, the consequence of these delays for these companies are huge financial losses and tremendous logistic issues to fix the delays of their goods.

Present situation

Solutions

Conclusion

Discussion

References