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UAS CE Marking
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Marketing UAS within the European Union
The objective of this article is to offer a fairly accurate idea of what drone manufacturers will need to do to market their aircraft within the European Union, regardless of the country.
What is the CE Marking?
The CE Marking is a symbol that indicates that a product is compliant with the essential requirements of the directives and regulations that apply to it. These essential requirements are understood as the general conditions of a product to preserve safety.
It should be noted that if the aircraft meets the determined manufacturing standards of other countries outside the European Union, it will be necessary to verify that it also meets the safety requirements that exist in the directives of the European Union. If not, the aircraft cannot be marketed.
Directives and regulations for CE Marking
As mentioned earlier, the CE Marking may involve compliance with several directives and regulations, not just one. Therefore, it is crucial to determine which directives must be complied with for the correct certification of the aircraft.
In the case at hand, drones must comply with Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/945 and its modifications, but they must also comply with other directives such as RoHS, EMC, RED, etc.
To do this, it is important to see the characteristics of the aircraft and then determine which requirements of the standards and directives it must comply with.
CE Marking Process
- First of all, we must analyse which directives or regulations affect the drone that we want to certify. A good starting point is to determine which Classes the aircraft must have assigned, and thus determine its requirements. We leave you a link, so you can check the characteristics of each UAS Class.
- Once we have cleared all the requirements that the aircraft must meet, we must carry out each of the directives and regulations:
- Find out if there are harmonized European standards.
- In the case of harmonized European standards existing, we must decide whether to adhere to them or directly rely on legal order, always taking into account the surveillance of existing standards.
- Intervention of a notified body for the verification of the design of the aircraft.
- Evaluation of conformity.
- Design phase | EU-type examination.
- A Notified Body examines and evaluates the technical design of the product and verifies and certifies that its technical design meets the applicable requirements, issuing a type examination certificate, which records the main characteristics of the evaluated aircraft.
- Production phase.
- It is ensured and declared that the products are in conformity with the type described in the EU-type examination certificate and that they meet the applicable essential requirements.
- Design phase | EU-type examination.
- Preparation of the technical documentation.
- Preparation of the CE Declaration of Conformity, together with the reference number of the Notified Body that issued the EU-type examination certificate.
- Placing of the CE Marking.