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wedrone / Physical AI onboard

Autonomous means: you can no longer intervene.

That is not a marketing line but the definition in EU Regulation 2019/947. What it does to the authorisation, to link-loss behaviour and to what you must prove — and why the solid case today is the GNSS-denied interior.

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What is decided onboard

Five points where this gets concrete.

GNSS-0

Flight without satellite navigation

Inside a tank, a silo, a boiler, a ballast tank or a sewer there is no GNSS. Position is computed onboard by SLAM methods that combine LiDAR measurements with optical cameras for optical flow and velocity. In closed assets that is the industry standard, not the outlook.

  • LiDAR SLAM
  • Optical flow
  • Closed asset

CAGE

Obstacles in confined space

In narrow pipes, dusty boilers and complex lattice structures, optical avoidance systems regularly fail through occlusion and sensor reflections. A publicly documented market example — expressly without any supply or partner relationship — is the Elios platform from the manufacturer Flyability, which relies on an enclosing carbon cage rather than active sense-and-avoid and keeps flying despite unavoidable wall contact.

  • Collision tolerance
  • Occlusion
  • Market example

C2

Behaviour on loss of link

Point UAS.SPEC.050 in Part B of the Annex to Regulation (EU) 2019/947 obliges the operator to establish procedures and operational limits appropriate to the intended type of operation and its risk. A break in the command and control link must not result in the aircraft leaving its assigned operational volume in an uncontrolled way. That behaviour belongs in deterministic programming and in writing.

  • UAS.SPEC.050
  • Hold position
  • Return or emergency landing

SORA

Containment in the authorisation

Almost every complex inspection flight with autonomous or automated trajectory guidance falls into the specific category. The governing standard is SORA 2.5, developed by JARUS and introduced by EASA with ED Decision 2025/018/R of 29 September 2025, incorporated into the June 2026 revision of the Easy Access Rules. Containment is assessed there at Step 8, before the operational safety objectives are set at Step 9.

  • Specific category
  • Step 8
  • Operational volume and buffer

LOG

Evidence, not capability claims

Authorities and inspection bodies do not accept a marketing statement. What is required is traceable, manufacturer-independent test reports, deterministic abort criteria on sensor failure, tamper-proof geofence limits stored in the flight controller, and gapless recording of raw sensor data, control commands and the onboard stack's state decisions.

  • Abort criteria
  • Geofence evidence
  • Gapless telemetry

Scope: this page covers only flight and navigation decisions taken onboard in real time. Automated image analysis, crack detection and thermographic damage classification are a separate processing step and belong inside a structured inspection programme.

Without satellites

The tank has never heard of GPS.

How we frame it

The term. The scope. The responsibility.

01

Autonomous is a legal term

Article 2 of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/947 defines autonomous operation as an operation during which the unmanned aircraft operates without the remote pilot being able to intervene. By that measure almost everything flying industrially is not autonomous but highly automated: as long as a remote pilot can override, abort or stop over an existing radio link, responsibility stays with the human.

02

Indoors is clear, the way there is not

The German Federal Aviation Office states in its FAQ on UAS operation: „Diese Anforderungen gelten nicht für den Betrieb von UAS in Gebäuden“ — these requirements do not apply to the operation of UAS inside buildings. Registration, categorisation and competence requirements therefore do not bite inside a building. In practice the line is fluid: according to manufacturer figures from Flyability, up to 70 percent of flights with inspection systems such as the Elios platform take place at least partly outdoors. Even the short hop from the set-down point to a manway activates the full European legal frame.

03

We structure it, certified operators fly

wedrone does not fly and holds no operational authorisation. We structure the use case, the compliance path and the interface to the ground side, and bring in the operator who carries the authorisation. werob is a manufacturer-independent systems integrator, not an OEM, not a manufacturer and not a model developer — the onboard systems and their models come from the manufacturers.

Ground side

The same question comes up on the ground.

Once part of the behaviour comes out of a learned model, it can no longer be accepted case by case — no more on a ground robot than on an aircraft. What sets the measure there is not air law but the operating envelope, the change state of the model, and a deterministic safety layer that stays independent of both.

werob: Physical AI in robotics

FAQ

What exactly does “autonomous” mean for a drone?
It is a legal term, not a feature. Article 2 of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/947 defines autonomous operation as an operation during which the unmanned aircraft operates without the remote pilot being able to intervene. By that measure almost all industrially deployed systems fly highly automated rather than autonomously: as long as a remote pilot can override or abort over an existing radio link, responsibility in air law stays with the human. Genuine autonomy begins only where that fallback level is absent.
Where does onboard autonomy actually run today, and what is a demonstration?
It holds up where human intervention is physically impossible: in fully enclosed spaces and assets such as tanks, silos, boilers, ballast tanks and sewers. There, LiDAR-based SLAM combined with optical flow is the industry standard for positioning without GNSS. Sense-and-avoid outdoors, fusing radar, optical and LiDAR sensors, is regulatorily demanding and heavy on onboard compute — that is not routine operation, and we do not describe it as one.
We only fly indoors. Does the EU frame apply at all?
Not inside the building. The German Federal Aviation Office states in its FAQ on UAS operation that these requirements do not apply to the operation of UAS inside buildings. But practice is rarely purely indoors: according to manufacturer figures from Flyability, up to 70 percent of flights with inspection systems such as the Elios platform take place at least partly outdoors. Even the walk from the set-down point across the site to a manway or sewer shaft activates the full legal frame. Those transition zones belong in the assessment from the outset.
What changes in the operating authorisation when decisions move onboard?
What limits the operation is not flight capability but evidence. Complex inspection flights with autonomous or automated trajectory guidance fall into the specific category and therefore into a systematic risk assessment under SORA 2.5 — developed by JARUS, introduced by EASA with ED Decision 2025/018/R of 29 September 2025 and incorporated into the June 2026 revision of the Easy Access Rules. Containment is assessed there at Step 8, before the operational safety objectives are set at Step 9. What is assessed is the residual risk that the system leaves the defined operational volume through malfunction or navigation error.
What do we actually have to be able to show an authority?
Four things, none of them a manufacturer brochure. First, deterministic abort criteria: evidence that on sensor failure or contradictory attitude determination the onboard computer triggers defined safety manoeuvres rather than unpredictable corrections. Second, validated geofencing: evidence that physical boundaries are stored tamper-proof in the flight controller. Third, gapless telemetry: complete recording of raw sensor data, control commands and state decisions for later audit. Fourth, documented failure modes. Settle contractually as well who is the registered operator, who provides the remote pilots and who maintains the SORA documentation.
Does the drone analyse the imagery as well?
That is a different processing step, and this page deliberately does not cover it. What is treated here is exclusively flight and navigation decisions taken onboard in real time. Automated image analysis, crack detection and thermographic damage classification belong inside a structured inspection programme and are handled separately there.
And on the ground?
The same question arises for ground robots, under a different rulebook: what changes in specification, acceptance and change control when part of the behaviour comes out of a learned model? That is covered by the werob Physical AI solution.

Further reading

Settle the evidence before you choose the aircraft.

Describe the asset, the access and the intended cadence. We structure the compliance path and the operator question, and bring in the operator who carries the authorisation.

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