Rules ERD

Andi Lamprecht ·2026-05-11· 3 min read· Draft

Title

Context

Following up from the first Approvals ADR we need to give structure and contents to the concepts set out in said ADR, namely:

• Rule - A requirement that must be met for a flight to be permitted.
• Ruleset - A set of related rules.
• Jurisdiction - An area under the authority of a governing body who has the power to set out rules applicable in the area.

We also need to decide what relationships they form amongst themselves and concepts of GeoObject, Airspace and Transforms (means of creating new GeoObjects from other GeoObjects, e.g.: by adding buffers).

The thinking here is heavily inspired by an arguably successful (or at least working) model Airmap established in its UTM platform.

Decision

Relations

Jurisdictions

A Jurisdiction is an area where authority is exercised and so there is one GeoObject associated with each Jurisdiction.

Jurisdictions can overlap spatially for two reasons:

• Two or more authorities independent from each other set out rules in the same area. The rules from these jurisdictions are also independent and all need to be met in order for a flight to be permitted.
• One Jurisdiction delegates authority to another and this dependence (relation) can model a permission the parent grants to the child to override/overrule the parental rules.

Rulesets

A Ruleset is a set of related rules that all apply to a prospective flight. A Ruleset is something an authority sets out to control the Jurisdiction and so each Ruleset belongs a Jurisdiction.

The obvious use case is an Authority obliging pilots to follow some Rules, but there are two more interesting flavours:

• An authority can set out optional Rules to follow under some incentives, like an insurance premium. The pilot picks an optional Ruleset voluntarily and is prepared for their flight to be rejected because they don’t follow one of the rules in that set.
• An authority can offer Pilots a couple of alternatives to pick from. A good example is the LAANC commercial (part-107) and recreational rules, where the pilot has to pick one based on their use case. Pilots may have to pick multiple times, not just whether the flight is recreational or commercial, but perhaps also whether they are advanced flyer or a beginner.

Attributes

This section describes the contents the discussed concepts carry - what attributes describe them that balance simplicity enable the features the product needs to have.

Consequences

What becomes easier or more difficult to do because of this change?

Alternatives Considered

Ruleset n to 1 with Jurisdiction suggests that one Jurisdiction cannot “borrow” a ruleset from another when it finds it simply useful. An example could be emergency responders from one EU member state trying to align or follow good practices of another.

Formal Impact

List any systems or services that are impacted by this architectural decision.