Unmanned aerial vehicles : application, legal regulations and challenges

The advantages of unmanned systems, such as cheaper operation, greater safety, better performance in flight duration or their minimal impact on the natural environment, result in a systematic increase in their significance and development, compared to manned aircraft. Even today the UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and UASs (Unmanned Aerial Systems) play a significant role both in civil, and in military environments, and they are expected to play a growing role in the world air transport and numerous other fields of human activity. At the end of 2018, the European Commission introduced the NBR (New Basic Regulations), regulating issues related to UAVs at a supranational level. This was a significant step towards the integration of manned and unmanned aviation, enabling international UAV flights, subjected to the same regulations of the member states on route of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. When introduction of UAVs to the common airspace is considered, the particularly relevant elements include: maintaining the seamless air traffic control, safety, capacity and efficiency of airspace management, and securing environmental protection. The purpose of the present article is to demonstrate the potential UAV applications, present changes in legal regulations, and the challenges faced by the Air Traffic Services and the elements of aviation command. The article presents solutions ensuring an adequate level of safety and smoothness of air traffic in the common airspace for operations carried out by both manned and unmanned aircraft. The article used the following methods: monographic, expert, participant observation, inductive and deductive, analysis, synthesis and comparison. Research sources were available literature and magazines, press articles, interviews, reports and authors' own experience as well as documents sourced from websites, most of which were written in English.