STANAG 4811 sense and avoid for unmanned aircraft systems

What it is

STANAG 4811 is the NATO Standardization Agreement covering Sense and Avoid (SAA) for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). This is Edition 3, promulgated 22 August 2025, and it converts what had been a non-binding NATO recommendation, STANREC 4811 Edition 2, into a full ratifiable agreement, stating it "is converted from STANREC 4811, Edition 2, after validation of AEP-107 by nations and industry."

A STANAG is not the specification

A STANAG is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement a standard, not the technical specification itself. STANAG 4811's own text is short and administrative: an aim, three interoperability requirements, and the ratification, implementation and reporting machinery. The functional and performance requirements named in its title sit in a separate publication, AEP-107, Edition B, which the STANAG names as the standard participating nations "agree to implement". AEP-107 "provides minimum functional and performance requirements to ensure the safety and interoperability of SAA systems for UAS operations in non-segregated airspace" and "defines tailorable acceptable means of compliance for each requirement" - so anyone actually designing or verifying a Sense and Avoid system needs AEP-107's own text, not this cover agreement.

What it commits nations to

The stated aim is interoperability across three requirements: compatibility ("to ensure the safety of civil and military operations through acceptable interactions of equipment, operations, procedures, and humans"), interchangeability ("to support recognition and commonality of materiel solutions and industry standards"), and commonality ("to enable routine operations by standardizing operational procedures, functionality, performance, and approval processes"). None of the three is developed further in this document; the detail sits in AEP-107.

Who it binds, and how

STANAG 4811 binds nations, not suppliers. It is effective "upon receipt for use by the participating nations and NATO bodies", and a given nation is bound through ratification, which NATO records in the NATO Standardization Documents Database (NSDD). Implementation is a separate, further step: the STANAG "is considered implemented when the standardized requirements in AEP-107 are used or are specified to be used" within one of four routes it names - SAA acquisition programmes, "certification, airworthiness, or certification processes", cross-border approvals of SAA-equipped UAS, or recognition of industry SAA standards. Once implemented, Allied nations and NATO bodies "shall provide implementation details through the electronic reporting tool"; partner nations are only "invited to provide their implementation details" the same way. A supplier or integrator meets STANAG 4811, or the AEP-107 requirements it covers, only where a contract or tender says so - the document sets no obligation reaching a supplier directly, and it names no NATO-wide effective date (its own "NATO Effective Date (NED)" field reads "Not applicable").

Who approves an aircraft to fly

STANAG 4811 does not name a specific authority. It says implementation happens "by the appropriate authorities" through a nation's own "policy, regulation, order, or instruction", applied within that nation's "certification, airworthiness, or certification processes" or to facilitate "cross-border approvals of SAA equipped UAS". Which body that is, and what it actually checks, is left to the acquiring nation's own existing process - this STANAG does not set one out.

How it's evaluated

STANAG 4811 describes no certification scheme and no audit of its own. What it describes is nations reporting to NATO: ratification responses are "recorded in the NATO Standardization Documents Database (NSDD)", and Allies separately report implementation details through NATO's electronic reporting tool. Nobody is "STANAG 4811 certified", and the document never uses that language. Whatever certification, airworthiness review, or cross-border approval a given SAA-equipped UAS actually goes through is run by the acquiring nation's own certifying authority, against whatever acceptable means of compliance was chosen under AEP-107 - not against this cover agreement.

Standards it references

STANAG 4811 covers AEP-107, the Allied Engineering Publication that carries the actual functional and performance requirements and the acceptable means of compliance. Reviews of the STANAG itself run under AAP-03. It supersedes STANREC 4811, Edition 2, dated 14 December 2021, the recommendation it converts from - a document outside our catalogue.