Sécurité avant tout! Étude par entretiens de la planification de missions de drones pour guider la conception des systèmes soutenant les analyses de sécurité et les demandes d'autorisation: Safety first! An Interview Study of Drone Mission Development to Guide System Design Supporting Safety Analyse and Authorization Requests

Balita Heriniaina Rakotonarivo, Nicolas Drougard, Stéphane Conversy, Jérémie Garcia

Abstract: The use of civilian drones is a growing market offering services such as delivery, surveillance or rescue. The operationalization of these uses is complex and presents a level of risk that must be controlled through safety analysis processes and authorization requests before any flight. In order to instrument these processes with usable interactive systems, we conducted interviews with drone operators, safety study coaches and regulators. We found that despite the use of many tools and methods, files often have to be modified several times following feedback from regulators. We describe the work processes and the interaction between actors during the missions preparation. The preparation include the definition of a concept of operation, the assessment of operational risks and obtaining an authorization to operate from authorities. For each of these steps, we offer recommendations for designing new interactive systems able to support safety.