UAVs
Unmanned cargo aircraft
Boeing
Air freight
reloaded
As the use of UAVs expands to include
freight transport, what are the potential
applications for a larger unmanned cargo
aircraft? BILL READ reports on the issues
raised at the second Unmanned Cargo
Aircraft Conference in The Netherlands.
A UCA ... WOULD
BE IDEAL FOR THE
TRANSPORT OF
LIGHTER PAYLOADS
OVER SHORTER
DISTANCES WHERE
SPEED AND
WEIGHT ARE NOT
SO IMPORTANT BUT
WHERE FUEL AND
PERSONNEL COSTS
COULD BE GREATLY
REDUCED
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AEROSPACE / APRIL 2015
I
n recent years the use of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) has snowballed with a huge
increase in the number of UAVs and their
applications. Recent media attention has
focused on the increased use of UAVs in
military applications and also on the rise of small
commercial and privately operated UAVs. However,
one area not so much talked about but still under
development is the introduction of larger unmanned
aircraft. Over the past 50 years, increased
automation of aircraft systems has resulted in the
steady decrease in the number of flight crew with
the removal of the navigator, flight engineer and
the radio operator. Most large commercial aircraft
are now down to a flight crew of two and there
is now talk of single-pilot commercial jets. If this
trend continues, then the next logical step will be
to complete the ‘depopulating of the flight deck’
and have commercial aircraft with no pilots at
all. However, before any such move was made,
it would be necessary to ensure the public,
regulators and other airspace users that such
an aircraft would be safe to operate. As yet,
there are no proposals to introduce unmanned
passenger aircraft but there is research currently
under way in developing unmanned cargo aircraft
(UCA) designs, together with the technology and
regulations required to ensure that such aircraft
could be operated safely in commercial airspace.
Such aircraft could offer considerable economic
advantages in certain markets and could also
test technology and operations which could
potentially be applicable to future unmanned
passenger aircraft.
BoXair
In February the University of Twente’s
Platform Unmanned Cargo Aircraft (PUCA) in The
Netherlands hosted a conference which looked at
the latest developments in unmanned cargo aircraft
(UCA). Speakers at the Second UCA Conference
(the first conference was held in 2014) looked at
how such aircraft might be designed, operated,
regulated and be economically successful. Hans
Heerkens, Assistant Professor at the University of
Twente (UT), explained how The European Advisory
Council for Aviation Research and innovation in
Europe (ACARE) has predicted that the most
likely first civil use of larger UAVs will be in freight
transport. The US Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) has also forecast that, within 40 years, 2040% of air cargo will be transported by unmanned
aircraft. To stimulate and facilitate the development
of UCA, UT’s Department of Industrial Engineering
& Business Information Systems, together with a
number of other European and US organisations, set
up PUCA — a project led by Heerkens (see Send it
by UCA, AEROSPACE, January 2014, p 36).
University of Twente
Air cargo opportunity
Joost van Doesburg, Air Freight Policy Manager
at the European Shippers’ Council (ESC) looked
at what UCA could offer to freight shippers. “In
recent years there has been a ‘modal shift’ in freight
transport,” he declared. “Research carried out in
2014 by Seabury/IATA showed that air freight has
lost ground to sea transport. The market share of air
freight in international trade has dropped from 3%
in 2000 to 1.7% in 2013 — equivalent to around
5.4m tons lost over that 13-year period. There
were also changes within the air freight industry
with freighter capacity falling from 8,500 tons in
2012 to 3,000 tons in 2015 while cargo carried
in passenger aircraft over the same period rose
from 2,500 tons to 8,000 tons. There had been a
significant increase in the number of passenger
aircraft, while older aircraft were being replaced by
new aeroplanes with bigger belly capacity. These
changes had resulted in an overcapacity for air
freight resulting in lower freight rates with further
falls expected. He predicted that there would be
fewer freight-only aircraft operating in the future
with more cargo being carried as belly freight on
passenger flights.
van Doesburg explained how this situation
presented a unique opportunity for a revolution in
the air cargo industry. l“The use of UAVs for freight
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The Unmanned Advantage
University of Twente/PUCA
Top left: The first Boeing 747-8 freighter delivered to
airfreight operator Cargolux.
Top right: A proposed future UCA design from US
company BoXair.
Lower right: University of Twente concept art of UCA
airport operations.
UT’s Platform Unmanned Cargo Aircraft (PUCA) lists a number of advantages that
UCAs could offer over manned cargo aircraft:
● Because there is no need for a pressurised crew cabin, a UCA could be made
lighter and simpler than manned aircraft while still being able to fly efficiently at
altitudes up to at least 6km. The cross-section of the fuselage would not need to
be circular, as is the case with a pressurised cabin, but could be shaped to fit the
shape of square cargo containers. The cargo area could be relatively small and
the aircraft be built in more aerodynamically efficient shapes, such as a blended
wing body (BWB) or flying wing.
● UCA also offer the potential for innovative fire suppression techniques, such as
filling the entire aircraft with an inert gas, such as nitrogen, generated by onboard
equipment.
● One controller on the ground could control between ten to 30 UCAs. Dedicated
controllers with local knowledge could handle all UCA take-offs and landings
at specific airports, in a similar way to maritime pilots controlling ships entering
harbours.
● Since time spent in the air would not be an issue, a UCA could fly slower than
its manned counterpart at a cruising speed optimised to consume as little fuel
as possible. An optimal speed will be around 450km/h, so a trip from eastern
China to Paris will take one day. This would still be much faster than land or
sea transport and overall delivery speeds could still be comparable with that of
manned aircraft by avoiding the time and costs involved in trans-shipping at hubs.
● A low cruising speed would enable the aircraft to have a greater range than
comparable manned aircraft. In addition, a UCA could benefit from efficient
propeller propulsion and use shorter, unpaved, runways.
● Because there are no pilots, there would be savings in crew salary and stopover
costs. Their low-operating cost enable UCA to make direct flights with low
volumes of cargo. A UCA could fly all over the world, only returning to its home
base for heavy maintenance.
● A business model like that of car rental companies is possible: an operator rents
a UCA out to a shipper who leaves it at its destination where it is rented out to
the next client.
transport has already begun, with small drones
being used for point-to-point deliveries,” he said.
“However, there are other areas in the air cargo
market which could be served by larger UCA. It is
not intended that such UAVs should compete with
large manned cargo aircraft, such as the Boeing
747F, which is currently responsible for handling
50% of total air cargo. Nor would they compete
with cargo transported in wide-body passenger
aircraft, which would be hard to beat on cost. While
it could not compete with the freight capacity or
speed provided by a large, fast, passenger aircraft, a
UCA with a cargo capacity of 2-20 tonnes, a range
from 1,000-10,000km and a cruising speed of
www.aerosociety.com
APRIL 2015
25
UAVs
Unmanned cargo aircraft
about 450km/h would be ideal for the transport of
lighter payloads over shorter distances where speed
and weight are not so important but where fuel and
personnel costs could be greatly reduced.”
The PUCA project is looking at two particular
markets in which it thinks a UCA could be used.
The first is intracontinental transport within Europe.
Companies in Central and Eastern Europe, presently
constrained by inadequate ground infrastructure,
would be able to transport their products from small
airfields to Western European or even US markets.
A UCA could also be used for intercontinental
transport. Small companies, for example, in the
The shape of UCA to come
Alain Lumbroso, Economist for the Joint Transport Research Centre of the
International Transport Forum and OECD looked at the various different
forms that a larger UCA platform might take:
1. Adapted conventional aircraft
A conventional manned aircraft could be converted into a UCA with
additional avionics. Such a platform could use automated taxiing systems,
such as Taxibot, to get to and from the runway and would integrate well
with existing ground equipment and flight traffic patterns. The main savings
from using an unmanned conventional aircraft would be derived from labour
costs with the savings increasing with the distance flown.
2. Unmanned helicopters
K-Max unmanned helicopter.
The feasibility of the concept of an
unmanned helicopter has already been
demonstrated by K-Max which has used
the platform as a small freighter and a
waterbomber. A vertical take-off and landing
(VTOL) UCA would be ideal for areas with
no infrastructure or oil platforms, emergency
transport or military supply operations.
However, it would have the disadvantages
of limited range and payload.
3. Lighter-than-air
Unmanned cargo airships have also
been proposed to serve markets
similar to large UCA. However,
they may not be so economically
feasible, as they would still require
specialised ground crew when
taking off and landing, as well as
such issues as the addition of
Unmanned cargo airship proposal from
ballast to compensate for empty
Aeros.
loads.
4. Custom-designed aircraft
A purpose-designed UCA would fully maximise the benefits of unmanned
flight. A customised UAV would have the advantages of making the best
use of fuselage volume, flying at very high altitudes and low-speed cruise to
minimise fuel burn and could be designed to operate from gravel runways,
snow or V/STOL. However, there would be considerable development
costs to create such a design, although these could perhaps be shared
with government investment to develop a platform which could be used for
military as well as civil applications.
26
AEROSPACE / APRIL 2015
Chinese hinterland, sell their products via the
Internet to customers in Europe. Instead of having
to transport their goods by road to local airports
and then to international hubs, Chinese companies
could use a UCA to deliver directly to the customer.
“PUCA aims to do for material goods what the
Internet did for immaterial goods: to create a dense,
adaptable network for moving goods so that each
small company or even an individual can become his
or her own shipper,” said Heerkens.
Other potential UCA applications are for routes
linking Western Europe and the US with other
regions that have economic potential but no proper
transport infrastructure, such as China, Africa and
South America. Products carried could include
high-value, raw materials, production equipment and
spare parts, finished products from isolated areas
or emergency supplies to disaster areas. Another
opportunity is in the delivery of cargo to remote
areas. “Oil fields and mines have a high need of
spare parts and machinery but shippers are less
keen to deliver them, as there is no round trip cargo
available to take back,” commented van Doesburg.
Another UCA application could be in specialist
niche markets, such as the transport of dangerous
goods. “Passengers and crew do not like carrying
dangerous goods, such as radiopharmaceuticals or
lithium batteries, in passenger aircraft but this would
not be a problem for a UCA, “ said van Doesburg.
Pilot projects
Research has already begun on testing the viability
of UCA systems. Professor Jim Scanlan at the
University of Southampton is looking at a project
investigating the commercial viability of a cargocarrying UAV to serve remote regions with small
populations (see Project HIATUS panel on right)
while, in Japan, work is being carried out to develop
a UCA which can provide transport for the logistic
industry. “Soaring labour cost of cargo business has
become a big issue in Japan,” explained Yasuhisa
Yamaguchi of DBJ Capital: “Our UCA project will
provide the solution for this problem and cause
a revolution in the logistics business. The main
technology of our project comes from AIST, which
is the research institute of METI. Dr Iwata, senior
researcher of AIST, has just launched new ‘rogallo
wing’ UCA which can carry a payload of up to 100kg,
fly at 100km/h and travel up to 100km. Our project
is currently focusing on the flight of the new UCA
and the development of its management systems.“
Barry Koperberg, GM of Wings For Aid,
explained how UCA could be used for humanitarian
cargo logistics, using the examples of medicine
distribution in rural Africa and worldwide disaster
relief. Relief supplies could be delivered in bulk in
large aircraft to hub airports and then distributed
Project HIATUS
Challenges and regulations
Professor Jim Scanlan FRAeS, Professor of Aerospace Design at the University
of Southampton, is working on a project investigating the commercial viability of
a cargo-carrying UAV to serve remote regions with small populations and poor
or complex transportation links. Project HIATUS (Highlands and Islands Aerial
Transportation using
Unmanned Systems) is working on designs
for a 3D-printed 50kgpayload UCA with a range of up to 100km.
Requiring a minimal
ground infrastructure without the need for an
airfield, the UCA would
be fitted with twin engines for safety and be
able to operate in poor
weather conditions, such as winds over 30kt,
fog, rain and snow,
low temperatures
and icing
conditions. “The
aircraft
could operate in
conditions
where
manned
aviation is
However, before the use of UCAs could become
a practical proposition, much work still needs to be
done in a number of areas. More research needs to
undertaken to look at new configurations for UCA
platform designs (see panel on left), together with
the advanced structures, propulsion systems and
equipment that would enable these aircraft to be
developed and operated. Airport infrastructures and
logistic concepts need to be developed to allow the
use of such aircraft, as do the maintenance, repair and
overhaul (MRO) capabilities needed to service them.
As well as platforms and infrastrastructure, new
certification rules and airspace regulations must be
in place to allow the use of unmanned aircraft in civil
airspace. The European Union is currently working
on its Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR)
plan to radically upgrade Europe’s air traffic control
system to enable its more efficient operation and
increasing number of flights. As well as introducing
new technology and regulations to improve the
operation of conventional manned aircraft, the
programme is also looking at how remotely piloted
air systems (RPAS) could be introduced safely into
commercial airspace. Denis Koehl, Senior Advisor to
the Executive Director, SESAR Joint Undertaking,
outlined the SESAR 2020 RPAS definition phase
and RPAS R&D Roadmap development.
“The requirements for RPAS integration are
linked to the European ATM Master Plan and the
ICAO Global Plan/ASBU timeline,” he explained.
”The basic aim of SESAR is that all airspace
operators will be treated on an equal basis, including
UAVs. RPAS will be expected to fit into the ATM
system (and not the reverse) and will have to prove
that they are as safe as current manned vehicle
operations and that their behaviour in operations is
equivalent to manned aviation, in particular for air
traffic control.
The plan is to have a gradual introduction of
RPAS into the EU civil aviation system, the pace
of which would be determined by technology,
regulation and ‘societal acceptance’. The RPAS
Definition Phase will focus on the regulatory and
operational changes needed to integrate UAVs into
European airspace. These will include performance
requirements, operational changes in air traffic
management, enabling systems and validation
needs. As part of its preparations for the integration
of RPAs, the EU is conducting a series of nine
demonstrations in different countries looking at
different aspects of RPAS operations, including their
relative speeds compared with manned flights, ATM,
take-off and landings and emergency procedures.
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hazardous,” he
explained. The UCA
would be equipped
with encrypted
and ‘lockedfunctionality’
long-range communications with guaranteed
monitoring of its
location independent of GPS. It could operate
in segregated
airspace ‘corridors’ in low usage segregated
airspace timeslots — such as hours of darkness. The project
is aiming to fly a small demonstrator within nine months after which it will deploy
and test a system for an extended period in a number of regions. One area under
consideration is the Shetland Islands which are frequently subject to poor weather,
especially fog, where the use of manned aircraft is very expensive and maritime
links are slow and costly. “A HIATUS UCA be used for lots of short missions and
would be particularly useful for medical emergencies,” said Scanlon.
University of Southampton
locally for distances of up to 150km by smaller
cargo UAVs.
The UAV illustrated is the 2SEAS, the world’s first rapid prototyped unmanned aircraft
under 20kg developed at the University of Southampton by the Computational
Engineering Design Group led by Prof Jim Scanlan and Prof Andy Keane which can fly
for up to six hours.
Public perception
Another challenge is that of public perception.
Doesburg admitted that there was still opposition
over the use of cargo UAVs. “Public opinion is fickle,”
he said. “People are asking whether drones are really
safe to use, as well as raising a variety of concerns
over such issues as invasion of privacy, noise, and
loss of pilot and other jobs. Meanwhile, those who
use UAVs want access to commercial airspace but
don’t want the cost and burden of qualifications,
medicals and formal engagement with ATM systems
currently required for manned aircraft.”
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APRIL 2015
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