Structuring the Decision to Implement a C-UAS System in a Civil Airport: a Value-Focused Thinking Approach

The growing presence of unauthorized remotely piloted aircraft near Brazilian airports reveals a systemic gap in airspace management: the absence of integrated detection and response systems. The decision to implement a Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) at airport infrastructure constitutes an unstructured problematic situation involving multiple actors with conflicting interests, heterogeneous perspectives, technical and legal uncertainties, and intangibles. This paper proposes Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) as a Problem Structuring Method (PSM), situated within the field of Soft Operational Research, to organize this decision. Based on stakeholder mapping and the initial decision frame, a hierarchy of fundamental and means objectives is constructed, complemented by a means-ends network and attribute definitions. The Brazilian regulatory framework, comprising RBAC-E 94 (ANAC), ICA 100-40 (DECEA), ANATEL regulations, and related legislation, is incorporated as a structuring dimension of the decision, revealing a structural gap regarding the authorization of active countermeasures. Technological alternatives emerge from stakeholder values rather than pre-fixed technical catalogs, and are qualitatively evaluated against the nine identified fundamental objectives. The layered detection alternative, with escalated response and auditable logging, shows the best alignment with the objective set, particularly regarding legal compliance, traceability, and public trust, at the cost of higher complexity and investment.