Astraea ll - adm

Unmanned aircraft will learn to make their own decisions in the air, sharing control with a human operator only when necessary. The ASTRAEA programme tackles a fundamental barrier to routine drone use: current regulations require special conditions or restricted airspace for every flight. Without a system that can autonomously manage missions, detect faults, and handle emergencies, drones cannot safely share skies with passenger jets. This project builds a "variable autonomy" system that shifts decision-making between machine and human depending on the situation, alongside self-diagnosing health management for the vehicle itself. The technologies are generic, though the demonstration will be airborne, and the programme works directly with the UK Civil Aviation Authority to shape the regulatory framework. If successful, the impact extends beyond drones. The same systems could improve situation awareness for pilots in manned aircraft or potentially enable single-crew operation of large commercial planes. This is not about delivery drones for consumer goods; it is about fundamentally re-engineering how aircraft of any type share decision-making with people, opening airspace that has remained closed to unmanned flight.