Our articles increasingly mention the design verification report (DVR) and its importance. But what is this report? We will now introduce it.
Three operational categories have been established in the EU legal framework: open, special, and certificated. In the operational categories, the same level of flight safety must always be ensured and maintained, but this is always achieved in different ways in each category. In the special category, the operator must also use and present different tools and documents according to the six different SAIL levels in order to be able to prove the technical suitability and reliability of the drone.
The DVR, issued by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) upon the manufacturer’s request, supports this certification.
Up to SAIL level III, the operator is not required to request a DVR, but according to the practice so far, DVRs could also be requested for flight termination systems (FTS) for enhanced containment and technical elements responsible for the M2 risk mitigation measure, if the manufacturer wanted to achieve a high level of robustness.
However, for SAIL level IV operations, a design verification report is mandatory for 11 of the 17 operational safety objectives (OSOs). The DVR is not a type certificate, so it is only recognized in EASA member states and does not allow SAIL level V or VI operations.
The 11 OSOs concerned cover different design-related areas. The issued DVR contains the following information:
- List of documents submitted by the manufacturer and taken into account when issuing the DVR
- Appropriate flight path, ground and air risk class, operating environment
- Operational conditions and limitations:
- minimum ground risk buffer zones
- Population density limits
- radio frequency environment
- Specific elements related to continued airworthiness.