How can model driven development approaches improve the certification process for UAS?

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are currently flying in specific and segregated airspaces, separated from regular aircraft. Nevertheless, to be widely used in the future, UAS will need to be deployed in the same airspace as regular aircraft. However, their unmanned and automated features make this goal very difficult to certify. Indeed, it is necessary to validate the different parts of the UAS (operating system, communication system or even payload depending on their application) in order to be compliant with the whole airspace certification process. This paper deals with new model driven development approaches that are inherited from existing aerospace and aeronautical systems and that could be useful for the certification of UAS design. In this paper we demonstrate how a model driven design can improve UAS system robustness. A case study is introduced and focuses on the main advantages for UAS design environment: modularity and reusability.