SENSE & AVOID FOR UNMANNED AIRCRAFT Technological assessment and strategic development framework for Sense & Avoid-Systems in civil drone aviation*

This study analyses the requirements, technological maturity and regulatory framework of Sense & Avoid (S&A) systems for Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) operating in civil airspace. It addresses two research questions: to what extent current Sense & Avoid systems meet the requirements for safe and practical UAV operations, and which technological, operational and regulatory conditions are necessary for their future largescale integration. Based on a multi-stage methodological approach-including an online stakeholder survey, a systematic technology and market analysis, and an evaluation of existing standards and incident data-typical conflict scenarios, performance limitations of cooperative and noncooperative systems, and structural barriers are identified. The findings highlight significant gaps in detection range, robustness, standard compliance and operational use, particularly for non-cooperative technologies. Building on these results, a roadmap is developed that outlines key steps for needs assessment, technology development, testing & validation, and operational deployment. It provides a strategic framework to align technological, regulatory and societal aspects and to enable the safe, standardised integration of UAVs into civil airspace. Supplementary Material File (sense_and_avoid_uav_en_niederl-r_und_gerster-y_2025_v1.pdf) - Download - 287.42 KB Information & Authors Information Version history Copyright This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Authors Funding Information Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 179views 81downloads Citations Download citation Yvonne Gerster, Robin Niederl. SENSE & AVOID FOR UNMANNED AIRCRAFT Technological assessment and strategic development framework for Sense & Avoid-Systems in civil drone aviation*. Authorea. 19 November 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.176357741.13747860/v1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.176357741.13747860/v1 If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download. For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.