THE STATE OF PRODUCTION, APPLICATION AND SPECIFIC ISSUES OF REGULATORY AND METHODOLOGICAL SUPPORT OF UNMANNED AIRCRAFT TESTS
Authors: Bondarenko Yu. , Pavliuk V. , Herashchenko M. 
Published: September 2023

The experience of armed conflicts that do not cease on our planet confirms the increasing role of unmanned aerial vehicles in today's wars. The article analyzes the state and prospects of the unmanned aircraft vehicles production in the world, and highlights some problematic aspects regarding the provision of own unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) development and samples testing of Ukrainian and foreign UAV production in modern conditions. It is shown that the largest producers of military UAVs in the world during the last decade were the USA, Israel, the Republic of Turkey, China, and Iran. A significant part of the European NATO member states, having their own development of unmanned aircraft vehicles and sufficient capacity for their production, prefer the purchase and acceptance into service samples of UAV, mainly of American or Israeli production, which have proven themselves well during armed conflicts in the Middle East. Considering the urgent need of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for UAVs in 2014, Ukraine also followed the path of NATO countries and initially concluded contracts for the supply of foreign-made unmanned aerial vehicles. The beginning of the war with the russian federation also gave a significant impetus to the development of private defense companies in Ukraine. In 2014-2015, an entire industry of unmanned aircraft production was born, and Ukraine became the world's largest testing ground for advanced military technologies. Information about the UAVs used by the Ukrainian military is different, since the Armed Forces receive both officially accepted and adopted UAVs samples, as well as UAVs samples that are transferred by volunteer organizations and often do not have official records (especially those UAVs that are not originally intended for military use). The changes to the regulatory documents that govern the procedures for acceptance into service and acceptance of samples of weapons and military equipment are aimed at ensuring the urgent needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for these samples, but they create a number of problems. In the context of providing the Armed Forces with unmanned aircraft vehicles, this is an aggravation of the problems of regulatory and methodological support for the development and testing of UAV samples and the low level of readiness of UAV samples provided by their developers (manufacturers) for testing or proposed for operation under a simplified approval procedure. According to the authors, one of the ways to increase the defense capability of Ukraine is to increase the development and testing efficiency of weapons and military equipment that will be put into operation and armed in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Therefore, it is necessary to stimulate the developers (manufacturers) of UAVs to strictly comply with the current regulatory documentation on the development of UAVs and to improve the quality of preparation of UAVs samples for testing; to study the experience of NATO countries, as well as in terms of requirements for the specialists training in the combat use of UAV; to promote the implementation of NATO standards in Ukraine in order to expand the opportunities for the participation of UAV in joint operations in NATO member countries and in Ukraine.