We stand on the brink of unmanned aviation becoming a reality. Both the US and Europe have now declared timescales for revising the regulatory frameworks which, within the next 5 years will unlock an immense market – both for new vehicles and services emerging from the SME base, and as a disruptive capability which will see the progressive integration of autonomy technology into the civil market, and lead to autonomous civil freight within 10 years and potentially passenger transport thereafter. As a result of the collaboration between the ASTRAEA consortium and the CAA, the UK is now recognised as a world leader by the regulatory authorities in Europe, and is well-positioned to influence the form which the regulations ultimately take: ensuring that the interests of all UK industrial providers are represented (i.e. appropriate for safety, but not overburdening); and allowing the underpinning technology to be exploited to our competitive advantage. The purpose of this proposal is to allow the dialogue with the Regulators initiated under ASTRAEA to continue over the next 18 month formative period engaging actively with CAA and consulting with the SME base.

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The Integrated Computational Electromangetics & Novel Integration Technologies (ICE NITE) programme intends to find improved means, from an electromagnetic resilience point of view, for integrating systems into aircraft or other platforms (such as cars or trains), over the currently used un-organised bundles of cables tied into looms. A structured cable alternative would offer many advantages, including much improved modellability using computational electromagnetic methods. At present it is not possible to know where particular cables are in a bundle, and indeed, their positions are not fixed along a cable loom length. Improved certainty about locations would enable better targeted shielding, and better predictability of EM coupling levels which in turn should lead to lower margins, lower equipment qualification levels with resultant lower cost. Furthermore, this will engender reductions in volume and mass, enabling fuel savings or increased endurance/payloads.