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Unmanned Aircraft Pose US Airspace Problems
coondoggie writes to tell us that congressional watchdogs have called on Congress to create a body within the FAA to oversee unmanned aircraft development and integration. The group cited the rapidly growing unmanned aircraft community and is worried about the possible repercussions. "The GAO also called on the FAA to work with the Department of Defense, which has extensive unmanned aircraft experience, to issue its program plan. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assesses the security implications of routine unmanned aircraft access to commercial airspace, the GAO said. Even if all issues are addressed, and there are a number of critical problems, unmanned aircraft may not receive routine access to the national airspace system until 2020, the GAO concluded."
I don't have radar. Gliders don't have radar. ATC radar is very dependent on transponders, because they provide better information than raw ("primary") radar returns. If your radar is designed to track cooperative targets that are using transponders, it probably won't work as well without them.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
I hate to tell you but birds by themselves or in flocks do show up on radar.
While they were testing the prototypes for what would become the F-117 lockhead engineers had the model on a stand and were trying to locate the model on radar. Suddenly it showed up clear, when they looked up there was a bird standing on the model. The F-22 has been compared to having the radar cross section of small birds.
Fiberglass is transparent to radar and microwaves though.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Loss of communications. If you lose comms in a manned aircraft, the pilot follows his flight plan as filed until he regains comms or is able to take appropriate action to land safely. If you lose comms with an unmanned aircraft, depending upon its programming, it may or may not follow a flight plan, avoid other aircraft, and/or land safely.
See & Avoid is the process that aircraft in the US use to keep from running into one another. Only a small percentage of aircraft flying in the US at any given time are operated under positive radar control. The rest are all out there with pilots who are on the look out for other aircraft. With a UAV and a manned aircraft in the same area you have only one able to see & avoid. Cutting in half the effectivness of the process.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/01/AFpredcrash070126/
Yes, but when have you ever known a Federal bureaucracy (or Congress itself, for that matter) to make such fine distinctions. It's a much safer approach (politically speaking) to simply ban/over-regulate everything in a given category and worry about the economic fallout later. It's the same hysteria-driven non-thinking that puts Estes model rockets in the same class as military weapons.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
1+1=4 to you than I guess
..... oohhh 'Government'
Open the other eye and see that they will obviously not be used for terrorisim surveilance a great majority of the time. UAV's have been getting cheaper and they are cheaper to fly than have a pilot up in jet/plane. Police agencies want these things because obviously if you had taken math class you would look at the numbers compared to flying a helicopter.
Were you dropped on your head as a kid or do you actually believe they would fly these things in commercial airlines routes. These things fly very low as it is, so the only real thing I can see them hitting is a newschopper and some maverick cowboy in his private plane.
OOOhhhh 'terrorisim'
Take off the paranoid shaders there buddy.
Actually I do, quite a bit. I design them.
And no, it's not. The autonomy part is fairly easy and the control algorithms already exist.
Autonomy =/= unpiloted. There's still a pilot, the operator still has a stick and a HUD, he just doen't need to continually correct heading, airspeed, pitch, and throttle for changes in wind conditions, updrafts, etc.
Very, very few UAVs will be "unpiloted" and any such "unpiloted UAVs" will be large HALE vehicles on station for weeks at a time, or strategic long mission duration vehicles operated by the CIA in foreign airspace anyway. In these cases, for the mission phases when the vehicle will be "unpiloted," a pilot will be on duty to intervene should the situation warrant.
Most of the R&D work these days is going into miniaturization, power sources, novel sensors, networking and long distance communications, image-based tracking, mensuration and geolocation, and also sensor data fusion and machine-to-machine interfaces.
IEEE's ICRA is in Pasadena next week, come check out the Exhibition, and see for yourselves.
I can see the fnords!
We run an open source UAV community at DIYDrones. We fly under RC rules (under 400 feet, etc) and our aircraft (fixed wing and helis) are typically under 3-4 pounds. We even have some UAVs with Lego Mindstorms autopilots!
Given that these are basically toys created by amateurs, it's going to be really hard to regulate them. That's why we want the FAA to create a de minimus regulatory category (under 3 pounds, under 1,000 feet, away from built-up areas, airports, etc), similar to what the FCC did with open access wireless spectrum. Otherwise, we're going to completely kill innovation in the independent commercial sector by creating an impossible regulatory burden.