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ANRA is a key participant in project SHEPHERD, a two year research initiative funded by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) public contract Horizon Europe Project: UAS standard. 

Comprised of 9 consortium partners, project SHEPHERD is seeking to build on the work achieved by AW-Drones and further analyze the standards listed in the EUSCG (European UAS Standards Coordination Group) UAS Rolling Development Plan. The previously conducted assessment looked at various factors including maturity, coverage, compliance costs & environmental impacts; however SHEPHERD will delve deeper into technical content for evaluating if these standards align with safety regulations.

SHEPHERD’s work methodology introduces a 4-step process for ensuring that standards meet objective requirements – examining them to determine which ones need assessment, assigning categories according to those needs, consulting independent experts on each standard related requirement and summarizing the overall findings.

The full methodology can be viewed on EASA’s website.

ANRA is providing the project with valuable expertise in Technical Evaluation, Design & Airworthiness for standards related UTM/Uspace, Vertiports and Command, Control & Communications. Our team is excited to contribute our knowledge towards this important initiative.

The project team is currently working on the assessment of initial standards which will be finalized by February 2023. In March 2023, these results are then set to undergo review from EASA’s experts and external advisors. Subsequently, in April 2024 we anticipate releasing this information for public viewing. Following that milestone completion, efforts will shift towards evaluating a second suite of standards..

ANRA consortium partners include Azur Drones, Deep Blue, EuroUSC Italia, German Aerospace Center, Michael Allouche, Murzilli Consulting, Volocopter and Wing.

For ongoing updates on project SHEPHERD, visit the SHEPHERD webpage on the EASA website.