OperA Team Chases EASA Approval for UAV Ops Management Technology

Honeywell Aerospace is looking to augment EASA approvals for its Operate Anywhere (OperA) Ground Control Station concept, aimed at supporting uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in European airspace. During a recent media briefing, the company reported that, having accomplished Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) Specific Assurance Integrity Level (SAIL) 2 earlier this year, its development team is now targeting SAIL 3 and 4 “medium risk” categories in 2026.

OperA is one of two Honeywell-led projects backed by the European Union’s SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking as part of wider efforts to improve air traffic management efficiency. It is intended to develop and validate solutions for advanced air mobility applications (including eVTOL air taxis and uncrewed cargo missions).

Much of the OperA work being conducted by Honeywell's technology center at Brno in the Czech Republic is focused on EASA’s “specific” drone category, allowing beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and more complex commercial operations. To achieve this, the system combines precision navigation, detect-and-avoid technology, and flight optimisation profiles for remotely-piloted vehicles.

Although the concept of BVLOS commercial drone applications has gradually gained traction since the Uber Elevate paper was published in 2016, anticipated traffic volumes have since prompted increased regulatory interest, according to Jan Peran, Project OperA senior program manager. He explained that with OperA able to scale from controlling one drone per operator to multiple aircraft via a “more complex control center,” the “very disruptive” concept positions Honeywell well to support increased commercial drone operations.

OperA was launched in December 2023 with 15 partners from 11 European countries and is due to run through the end of 2026. These included Pipistrel and Vertical Aerospace alongside the now-defunct Lilium and Eviation start-ups.

Since then, Honeywell has also signed an agreement with Odys Aviation to provide a Ground Control Station for the hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft developer’s pilot program. This use case will focus on Odys’ Laila drone, designed to carry a 130-pound payload up to 391 nm.

Stepping Stone to Autonomous Flight

“As a starting point, we have a ground-based version [of detect and avoid software] which works with the information from the U-space service provider (USSP),” Peran explained. EASA defines USSP as “a geographical zone for unmanned aircraft systems operations to take place with the support of U-space services.”

Safeguarded by human oversight, OperA will validate a vehicle’s flight plan pre-takeoff against aircraft limitations and airspace limitations. It is also intended to redefine routes mid-flight, drawing from a database of airspace and terrain factors.

“We call it a common operating feature, which actually accommodates data from all the different sources,” explained Peran. Honeywell and its partners intend for OperA to accommodate different drone service providers, and so the system is expected to have the capability to ‘hand over’ drone control to alternate ground control stations downroute.

The technology’s developers see it being of greatest value for commercial operations, such as express package delivery services, and they view it as an incremental path to fully autonomous flights. Peran said that early use cases will likely involve relatively large UAVs with payloads of between roughly 100 to 300 kilograms (220 to 660 pounds).