Beyond the Line of Sight: Drones, BVLOS and the Future of Port Operations

Ports are vast, complex environments where much inspection and monitoring is still done visually by people, often at height, near water or alongside moving plant. Associated British Ports has flown drones under a CAA Operational Authorisation for several years, managing its pilots, aircraft and missions through the DroneCloud digital compliance platform, and, through the Innovate UK funded InDePTH project, demonstrated automated drone-in-a-box operations over landside and maritime areas. 

The next step change is BVLOS. The CAA's Future of Flight BVLOS Roadmap (CAP3182) sets out operational pathways and scenarios intended to deliver routine BVLOS by 2027, moving from segregated airspace towards full integration through electronic conspicuity, detect and avoid, UTM and approved C2 links. In this seminar, ABP's Accountable Manager for Drone Operations reviews what has happened since InDePTH, explains how a multi-site operator uses digital tools to govern and evidence drone activity, maps port use cases onto the CAA's Atypical Air Environment and Fully Integrated pathways, and offers a practitioner's assessment of the roadmap's pace and ambition.