BVLOS Infrastructure Inspection

Regulatory status

Scenario overview

A utility operator flies a 2.1 km BVLOS corridor inspection along a power-line right-of-way. The aircraft runs a waypoint mission with AI obstacle avoidance. Mid-flight, the AI proposes a 25 m lateral deviation to avoid a construction crane. The governance system escalates to the Principal (the accountable human operator with Part 107 certificate authority). The operator approves with rationale. Battery reaches the return-to-launch threshold; the system denies further mission extension and initiates RTL automatically. The mission completes with a sealed evidence bundle.

Governance stack: Sentinel (edge MAVLink relay enforcing at wire speed) + FlightLaw (constitutional safety kernel evaluating Laws 3, 4, 7, 8).

Mission profile

Governance rules

FlightLaw composes four deterministic Laws. Every telemetry frame and every AI proposal passes through all four. Any Law returning DENY blocks the action (deny-wins composition) — regardless of other Law verdicts.

Law 3: Observation (telemetry integrity)

Validates that the aircraft is producing reliable sensor data before and during flight.

Law 4: Resource (battery and thermal)

Law 7: Spatial (geofence and airspace)

Law 8: Authority (operator authorization)

Pre-flight authorization

Frame 0001 — Mission load. Operator loads mission package (corridor polygon, waypoints, weather). All Laws pass. Verdict: AUTO_ALLOW. Evidence hash recorded.

Frame 0002 | Action: AUTHORIZE_MISSION
  Law 8: PASS — principal authorization recorded
    (operator_id: "SS-107-2024", rationale: "Routine corridor inspection")
  Verdict: AUTO_ALLOW
  Evidence: { hash: "b7c2...", authority: { principal: "SS-107-2024" } }

Frame 0003 — Arm and takeoff. GPS 11 satellites, IMU calibrated, battery 97%, power budget sufficient for mission + RTH + 20% reserve. Verdict: AUTO_ALLOW.

In-flight governance

Routine navigation (Frame 3841)

At 10 Hz telemetry, Sentinel evaluates every frame. Mid-mission sample: battery 72%, position 3.2 m from planned path, all Laws passing. Verdict: AUTO_ALLOW. Key property: identical inputs and Law versions always produce identical verdicts — enabling deterministic replay.

AI deviation — ESCALATE (Frame 4200)

AI obstacle avoidance detects a construction crane and proposes 25 m lateral deviation (confidence 0.89).

Frame 4200 | Action: AI_DEVIATION_PROPOSAL { offset: 25m_lateral }
  Law 7: PASS — proposed path inside geofence
  Law 8: ESCALATE — medium-risk AI deviation requires operator confirmation
  Verdict: ESCALATE_TO_OPERATOR
  Evidence: { escalation: { law: 8, timeout: 5000ms } }

Operator sees: "AI proposes 25 m lateral deviation for obstacle avoidance. Approve? [5 s timeout, defaults to DENY]"

Frame 4201 — Operator approves. Principal identity and rationale captured: "Crane visible on camera feed." Verdict: AUTO_ALLOW. The evidence bundle records that AI proposed, system escalated, operator approved — the full decision chain is traceable.

Battery RTL — AUTO_DENY (Frame 6100)

Battery reaches 20%. Law 4 returns DENY; deny-wins overrides all other Laws. Aircraft initiates return-to-launch. No operator input required — constitutional enforcement, not advisory. Operator override would require identity and rationale, itself recorded in the chain.

Post-flight evidence bundle

The evidence bundle (the post-flight audit package an inspector reviews) contains 7,340 hash-chained frames, one escalation, one automatic denial, and sealed chain integrity.

{
  "mission_id": "FW-2026-04-15-001",
  "operator_id": "SS-107-2024",
  "mission_summary": {
    "total_frames": 7340,
    "verdicts": { "auto_allow": 7337, "escalate": 1, "auto_deny": 1 }
  },
  "hash_chain": {
    "algorithm": "SHA256",
    "chain_length": 7340,
    "integrity": "verified"
  }
}

Inspector verification:

sentinel verify --bundle FW-2026-04-15-001.json
# Chain intact. 7340 frames. SHA256 verified.

sentinel replay --bundle FW-2026-04-15-001.json
# 7340/7340 verdicts identical. Determinism verified.

NPRM compliance mapping (FAA-2025-1908)

This table maps Flightworks governance artifacts to proposed Part 108 provisions in the NPRM. Final rule language may differ.

Revision policy