Drones will soon fly beyond the pilot’s line of sight to inspect railway tracks, airport runways, and deliver medical supplies to hospitals. The project, called CIRIAS, tackles a practical gap: current drone regulations and technology limit flights to within visual range, making long-range infrastructure monitoring impossible. Without this capability, inspecting critical assets like roads, railways, and power facilities relies on slow, costly manual checks or manned aircraft. The system integrates advanced avionics, collision-avoidance navigation, automated data analysis, and low-level airspace control (below 400 feet) to enable safe, routine beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations. If successful, CIRIAS could transform how the UK maintains its infrastructure. Drones would automatically inspect the condition of motorways and rail networks, rapidly respond to incidents such as track defects or airport runway damage, and deliver essential supplies to health facilities regardless of traffic. The project will demonstrate these capabilities through commercially viable missions at a global hub airport and on a national railway network. The learning will also help commercialise low-level airspace for more flexible public transport and delivery services, keeping Britain’s infrastructure resilient against climate change, economic shocks, and pandemics.
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CIRIAS - Critical Infrastructure Resilience Integrated Aviation System -- is a programme to develop an integrated end-to-end 'system of systems' to enable unmanned drones to fly long range missions Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), with the aim of sustaining critical UK infrastructure. The threats of climate change, economic uncertainty, and more recently a global pandemic, present risks to the health, well-being, and security of the UK population. CIRIAS is designed to minimise these risks by increasing the reliability of the infrastructure required to sustain our society, enabling planes to fly, trains to run, roads to remain available, and facilities to operate. Developed by a team comprising large global companies, major asset owners and operators, niche technology specialists, and leading consultants and academics, our project will develop all the elements of a system that will: * automate the inspection and monitoring of the condition of roads, railways, and airports. * rapidly respond to unplanned incidents to restore infrastructure to operational readiness. * make critical deliveries of essential products and services regardless of traffic conditions. These elements comprise: * A statement of work and trade study that identifies the appropriate UAS platforms to employ and integrate into our system of systems in order to most effectively achieve the use case goals that were identified. * A design and architecture of a system of systems that includes the advanced avionics, communications, and navigation systems to support safe, collision-free beyond visual line of sight drone operations. * A system used to plan, test, and simulate drone missions to enable stakeholder engagement and the gaining of regulatory approvals. * An integrated changeable payload capability to enable precision data capture from the air, as well as delivery and collection of critical payloads. * Automated data processing and analysis capability to derive maximum value from every data acquisition mission * A system for control of operational airspace below 400 feet to enable mission planning and compliance in increasingly crowded airspace. * A tactile stakeholder management system to gain social acceptance of all proposed missions. The integration of these elements will be demonstrated through key commercially viable missions to inspect the condition of critical infrastructure and respond to defects or incidents at a global hub airport and on a national railway network, as well as making critical deliveries to public health facilities. This integrated capability will contribute to keeping Britain moving, protecting the health of the nation and keeping workplaces operational. The learning from the development of this project will also be used to inform the greater commercialisation of low-level airspace to support more flexible and sustainable public transport and delivery services.
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