Drone manufacturer Primoco UAV: One 150 receives NATO STANAG 4703 certification and EASA approval

Czech drone manufacturer Primoco UAV SE has obtained two approvals for its One 150 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV): on the military side, NATO STANAG 4703 certification; on the civil side, approval from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in the form of a Light UAS Operator Certificate (LUC). The company describes the award as “the result of rigorous testing and development over the past five years”.

Primoco expects additional orders above all from NATO’s STANAG 4703 standard. It removes the need for complex and lengthy approval procedures in individual markets – NATO member states can therefore deploy the One 150 directly. Among UAVs with a take-off weight of up to 150 kilograms, the One 150 is currently the only one certified in this way.

What the drone manufacturer had to prove for certification

Founder and CEO Ladislav Semetkovský said: “For five years, almost 40 engineers, designers, verification experts and pilots have demonstrated that our aircraft meets the strictest requirements for operating in shared airspace with manned military aircraft and other certified UAVs.”

In total, more than 170 test flights, 200 test reviews and around 50 ground tests were required. For the CEO, this was also an advantage: “We compiled 28,000 pages of documentation, recorded 500 hours of video and stored 123 GB of data. This illustrates both the challenge of this certification and the competitive advantage it gives our company.”

Primoco UAV has also made progress on the civil side: the Czech Civil Aviation Authority issued the company an EASA Light UAS Operator Certificate at SAIL III level. Subject to certain risk mitigation measures, the One 150 may thus be operated over towns with up to 5,000 inhabitants per square kilometre. For comparison: Prague, the Czech capital and Primoco’s headquarters, has 2,800 inhabitants per square kilometre.

Semetkovský added: “This certification is a seal of quality for our high-tech capabilities and our ability to meet the highest regulatory standards. These capabilities allow us to develop advanced UAV solutions for environments in which most unmanned aerial vehicles are prohibited or require complicated exemptions. They also allow us to operate in shared airspace with manned aircraft, making us highly versatile”.

Thanks to the civil approval, the One 150 can provide critical services in densely populated areas, for example providing mobile phone signals during power cuts, floods or fires, or calibrating airport guidance systems. It does so at significantly lower cost than manned alternatives.