Unmanned vehicles (UVs) are mobile platforms that can be either piloted remotely, either move autonomously using certain degrees of onboard/online intelligence. These kinds of platforms are progressively getting cheaper and accessible and they are penetrating more and more also in the world of scientific research. UVs in fact allow to investigate areas that are hardly accessible (or hazardous) for human researcher, and they are especially relevant for atmospheric, biosphere and marine domains since they allow spatialized sampling in terms of vertical profiles, horizontal transects or a combination of both. Unfortunately, the legislation regulating the usage of these kind of platforms are not moving as fast as their technical development and their spreading in the scientific world. This results in legislation that are often different across different European countries and therefore make transnational research quite difficult: it is often impossible to deploy a platform in a different country without serious legal risks. For UVs research a shared observatory between countries and RIs would be a major boon, allowing to transfer payloads and joint research campaigns between RIs in full compliance with each country own regulations. The aim of this deliverable is threefold:
1. Describe the situation of the usage of UVs in the Atmosphere/Biosphere and Marine domains
2. Describe the main normative constraints acting on the deployment of UVs in the various domains
3. Detail guidelines that can be adopted to create a transnational shared observatory for UVs in research