The INVIRCAT consortium was delighted to welcome the members of the INVIRCAT Advisory Board (AB) in the INVIRCAT First Advisory Board meeting, which took place virtually, on Thursday, March 4th 2021.
The INVIRCAT Advisory Board (AB) consists of a large group of external experts and stakeholders with noteworthy and recognized expertise in the field of RPAS, RPAS integration and standardization. It complements the expertise already included in the Consortium and acts as an independent consultation body. In particular its role is to follow the activity of the project in order to:
review and steer the main project results,
establish connections with other related initiatives and projects
share information from/to other relevant projects and/or initiatives
To this end, it also involves members with knowledge of and expertise about some key related global initiatives and projects concerning RPAS integration, such as the work carried out by the European UAS Standards Coordination Group (EUSCG) and by the ICAO Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems Panel (RPASP), the EUROCAE and EASA initiatives related to RPAS integration, as well as ongoing SESAR Projects ERICA, URClearED and SAFELAND.
Overall, as represented below, the INVIRCAT Advisory Board includes 30 members from 28 different organisations, belonging to 7 stakeholders categories: Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), Airport Operators, Airspace Users, Staff Associations, Industry, R&D Community, Decision-makers and Standard Setters.
The main aims of the first meeting with the AB held in March were to present the initial concept of operations developed for the safe integration of RPAS in TMA and Airport environment to the AB members and to collect feedback, views, and comments from the different professional perspectives represented by the AB.
The meeting was structured as an interactive workshop, in which an overall number of 24 members of the AB and 11 members of the INVIRCAT team took part.
The workshop was structured in two main parts.
The first part aimed at collecting stakeholders' needs and requirements by identifying key issues and aspects that according to the stakeholders involved are to be taken into account when defining the operational concept for the integration of RPAS in the TMA and Airport environment under IFR.
The random word brainstorming technique was used in this first part of the workshop to get the required information.
The second part of the workshop focussed on the INVIRCAT Concept of Operations and was dedicated to discuss pros and cons of the proposed concept of operations, as well as to identify gaps and collect suggestions to enrich and consolidate the concept of operations.
The information collected will be taken into account for the finalization of the INVIRCAT Concept of Operations, which will be implemented and validated within the project.