How to buy UAS autonomy and flight control
Autonomy is bought to unlock an operation you cannot fly today. So the test is not what the software does, it is what evidence it produces for the approval you need.
This category covers flight control computers, autopilots, detect and avoid systems and the autonomy software stacks sold for uncrewed aircraft. The airframe is a separate guide, the ground control station is another, and the company flying missions for hire is a service provider. Buyers here are usually trying to do something the base rules do not allow, and that is the right frame for the evaluation.
Buy the evidence, not the demo
Part 107 governs the registration, certification and operation of civil small uncrewed aircraft systems, including operations over people, with exceptions for air carrier operations and for operations conducted under an exemption or under Part 91 where elected.1 Its operating rules are the constraints autonomy is usually sold to relieve: visual line of sight, one aircraft per remote pilot, operation at night, operation from a moving vehicle. Relief comes through the approval process, and approvals are granted on evidence. So ask the supplier which approvals its software has already supported, for which operator, in which airspace, and ask what documentation package came with it. Ask what the detect and avoid performance is: sensor field of regard, declaration range, the encounter geometries tested, and the false alert rate a pilot will actually live with. Ask how the system behaves on lost link, on lost GPS, and on a sensor failure, and ask for the flight test data showing each.
Integration and airspace services
Airspace authorisation in controlled airspace is automated through the FAA's UAS Data Exchange, where approved companies known as UAS service suppliers provide the applications that give drone pilots access to controlled airspace at or below 400 feet and give air traffic visibility of where drones will operate.3 Ask whether the autonomy stack talks to that ecosystem or expects your team to work outside it. Ask what remote identification the aircraft broadcasts and how the software handles it, since the design and production requirements and the declaration of compliance process sit on the producer.2 Ask what the interfaces are to your existing airframes, payloads and fleet management software, and ask what integration work you would be doing yourself.
The parts of the deal that outlast the pilot project
Ask how software is updated, whether an update can be deferred, and what the regression testing looks like. Ask what happens to your data: where flight logs and imagery are stored, who can access them, and what leaves the country. Ask whether the autonomy is sold as a licence per aircraft, per hour or per site, and what the price does at fleet scale. Where a configuration includes a defense article, the munitions list reaches the item and the technical data connected to it, so establish the classification before an export or a foreign demonstration.4
Questions that sort suppliers
Ask for the approval package the software has already supported. Ask for detect and avoid test data with the encounter set described. Ask what the software does when its sensors disagree. Ask who owns the flight data, in writing.
Sources, in the order cited
- 1Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 14 CFR Part 107, Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems
- 2Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 14 CFR Part 89, Remote Identification of Unmanned Aircraft
- 3Federal Aviation Administration · The FAA UAS Data Exchange and LAANC
- 4Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 22 CFR Part 121, The United States Munitions List