Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems: From Strategy to Action

In October, the chapter organized a one-day technical meeting on remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) at the Portugal Air Force Academy under the auspicious of the National Armament director and the director general of Infrastructure of the Ministry of Internal Administration. The forum, with 120 attendees, contributed to strengthening community among government, armed forces, homeland security, industry and academia around the theme “RPAS: From Strategy to Action.” The keynote speaker, Peter von Blyenbergh, president of UVS International, explained the problems and obstacles relevant to the integration of RPA into the segregated airspace and highlighted the action taken by the European Commission and its agencies for RPAS. During the first session, titled “Perspectives of Operational Employment,” Navy, Army, Air Force, gendarmerie, civil police and civil protection representatives presented, briefly, their operational concept for using RPAS capabilities in intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance operations or in protection against civil emergencies in homeland and inter-homeland spaces. In session two, members of national industry and academia showed RPAS in operation on an air base. Finally, in the third session, experts from national civil and military authorities—from an insurance broker in management risk to an innovation management president adviser—had a non-technological discussion about the surroundings of RPAS to use the best practices in business development.

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