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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."
It might crash (not saying it's more likely to do so than a manned one)
Particles, stuff that matters.
Let's see ... if you can buy a UAV or overrun the control station, then you can target anyone within the fuel range. You can easily crash into an airliner in takeoff, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. You cane easily spread chemical weapons, not so easy, but quite plausibly.
And that's the bullshit security implications. More importantly, though, you'll have unseeing devices sharing airspace with pink squishy things that won't see them (like me). UAV's, by nature, are generally smaller then manned aircraft. That makes them very difficult to see.
Consider the glider pilot. Let's say that he has a transponder. He's not required to, but he does. His transponder fails. Now, he's invisible to the the UAV. His airplane is painted the same color as the clouds (white) because fiberglass and heat don't work well together. His fiberglass airplane is invisible to radar. if the UAV's coming out of the sun, he's never going to see it, and it won't see him. A person would have seen him, but the UAV doesn't have a person looking out all the windows.
How does the military do it? We block off huge chunks of airspace and keep manned aircraft far away from the UAV's. Oh yeah, and the larger UAV's are driven by certified pilots. The Army has folsk who aren't pilots flying the,m, and crashes a *LOT* of them. The idea of joe cop flying a UAV is bad in every imaginable way. People on the ground, people in the air, privacy, it's just a can of worms.
As a 48 yo grandmother, techie and feminist I find that offensive. I've been a programmer since 1974, mostly writing C code, and I am sick of hearing this garbage. I think you'll find that you are a dinosaur, as most readers are more enlightened than you.
It's a bunch of adults overseeing children, not a bunch of children just given weapons and told to go have fun.
77 HITS
Really Long Off Topic Combo
So let's get this straight...
We have a massive increase in the number of UAV flights. You know, because of the "terrorists". This is (allegedly) primarily to stop "terrorists" getting on board planes and turning them into giant fireballs that will fall on the population.
Now, these same UAV's are in danger of hitting planes and turning them into giant fireballs that will fall on the population.
I ask you, even if you believe in "terrorists", which is more dangerous: "terrorists", or your Government?
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.
There seems to be a tacit assumption in posts thus far that unmanned craft will be flying willy-nilly through the commercial lanes. That's just not the case. UAVs have pilots controlling them through encrypted datalinks. The few that have or are proposed to have "autonomous operation" will do so at altitudes that are far above normal flight levels or in restricted zones. Even during autonomous operations, monitoring is continuous and a crew is standing by to take over flight operations. As far as Air Traffic Control is concerned, UAV in-flight emergencies will be handled just like piloted craft in-flight emergencies. Airspace will be cleared around the disabled or uncontrolled craft.
I'm much more concerned over the modernization of our air traffic control systems, than the impact of UAVs.
Invenio via vel creo
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.
Well, there's your problem right there. We gotta find a way to put metal in them pesky birds. Most people would immediately suggest putting metal in bird feed but I think we need to encourage our winged friends to adopt the fashion trend of body piercing.
"Where's my other sock?" - A. Einstein
Here's a reasonable proposal:
* Areas below a certain altitude will remain unregulated by the FAA except near airports and within a very short distance of official heliports and helipads, and then only at altitudes that affect aircraft. Localities can regulate them if needed to address local issues, such as flying near power lines or near government buildings, requiring failsafes (see below), requiring operator training, prohibiting certain activities such as commercial or private-investigation photography without permission of the photographee or landowner or in the case of private investigators, a license from the state or locality, etc.
* In the FAA-regulated zones, all aircraft must have a "responsible party" and either a human at the helm or an FAA-certified autonomous controller. This "responsible party" will have at least a modicum of training and will have flight privileges that match his training. All such aircraft over a certain weight or which, when flying, have more than a certain momentum or kinetic energy or which carry more than a certain amount of combustible fuel must have a "failsafe" in case the controller loses control. The failsafe will be designed to make sure the plane doesn't cause damage to other aircraft or to objects on the ground if it loses contact with its controller. Typically, this will be something like "activate emergency beacon, cut all engines, and deploy chute." The emergency beacon is there to tell other aircraft the vehicle is out of control and to assist in recovery when it lands.
* In FAA-regulated zones all vehicles will have a transponder so they can be easily seen by radar and other aircraft at all times.
* Below the FAA-regulated altitude, transponders are recommended but not required. Transponders can assist in the recovery of a lost or crashed aircraft.
Some will argue that the FAA should be able to take remote-control of unmanned aircraft in case of an emergency. This will be a political issue. I can see this in a limited case, where the FAA sends "no go" instructions to the aircraft directing it to not enter restricted territory based on current events, airport proximity, or restrictions based on the controller's limited training. However, I don't like the idea of the FAA being able to hijack a plane, even an unmanned one.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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.
The biggest "security implication" perceived by the FAA is interference with air traffic. However, the FAA lumps all UAVs into one category, from the Predator on down to tiny biomimetic dragonflys. This makes it nearly impossible for us to test fly our new products, without hauling a truckload of gear up to the nearest military test range.
And contrary to the belief of many, very few UAVs are armed. Only two US UAVs in operation carry payloads. The rest carry cameras.
I can see the fnords!
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/
There seems to be a tacit assumption in posts thus far that unmanned craft will be flying willy-nilly through the commercial lanes. That's just not the case.
Given that practically all airspace in the US, except for very small amounts of restricted and prohibited airspace, is a "commerical lane" by default, your argument is void. UAV's *are* flying "willy-nilly" thru Class G, Class E, and even Class D airspace and it is becoming an topic of serious safety concern for not only general aviation and commercial aviation, but also for military aviation too.
I've heard of at least one case where a law enforcement agency blunderingly flew their UAV right across a US Air Force Base where T-38 jet training operations were in progress.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
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.
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!
Look, its a joke.
The poster was making fun of the possible wordplay that "unmanned" did not necessarily mean robotic, it could have been women flying them. Now comedic timing is a difficult thing. Surely my statement above was not a funny description. The article stated that there was a serious problem with unmanned aircraft so there was already a sense that these unmanned craft were a bad thing because they were unmanned. There's an existing stereotype (certainly from a time when few women drove and rarely actually believed today) which when placed with the wordplay on "unmanned" makes a nice comedic delivery.
This is Slashdot. People make fun of things. Wordplay and poking fun at stereotypes is quite common here. If you've spent much time here, you've probably seen countless jokes made by Slashdotters about themselves: because they're all pimply faced 13-year-olds living in their mother's basement and dreadfully inept with girls. Now as a female programmer, I'll bet that you're already aware that this is a stereotype that is not necessarily true. Many programers are women. Most don't live at in their mother's basement (once they graduate college) as programming is one of the higher paid professions. Some even get married, too. They're jokes. Some of them quite funny, too.
When a joke like this is made, do you rush in to the rescue of pimply-faced nerds? Likely they've heard these stereotypes before and will hear them again. No one's going to melt away from hearing it again. If the stereotype fits the reader and it bothers them, they'll likely work hard to ensure that the stereotype is not true within themselves.
Now, as a female programmer, I would assume that you already know this. Or have you lived an extremely sheltered life and never heard the stereotype that women are not technical? Of course you've heard it before. It didn't stop you. Moreover, no one should stop doing what they love because it goes against a stereotype. I can't imagine that anyone thinks they should. But the stereotypes do exist in popular culture and they will be uttered by others.
Everyone will hear the stereotypes. It's always been a part of human nature and, trust me, it always will be. Everyone will always hear the stereotypes that they fight against whether it's because they're female, male, black, white, asian, blind, deaf, or from Texas. Everyone has heard stereotypes that includes them and are not true. Welcome to the club of everyone! The appropriate thing to do is to laugh it off and move on with your life. Especially when it's just a joke.
In the few cases where someone is so unbelievably stupid as to actually think the stereotype is a 100% true representation of reality and should be followed, then you should ignore them. Argument will not change the mind of someone that simple or they would already not believe in the truth of stereotypes. One should assume that everyone already knows you can't win that argument and people who still argue with them loom like fools.
Now, regarding your actions in the above post, you've made a serious error which I think you've may not have thought through. The stereotypes exist and will always exist, you can't put that genie back in the bottle. When you trace back some stereotypes you'll find they've existed for, quite literally, eons. Arguing about stereotypes will not make them go away it only gives them more exposure and greater traffic. Now, one of these common stereotypes is that women are weak and need to be protected. Every time you jump in and make statements like the one above you actually reinforce this very stereotype. You jump in to protect those poor, stupid, innocent women who are so weak that they'd simply crumble and stop their life's pursuit because someone uttered a simple stereotype. Thus, the great (and quite obviously rare) feminist needs to protect the other women who are naturally weak. And that's what I find truly offensive.
Talk about having to over-explain a joke. :(
You are asking me if I am comfortable with having a 15 meter wide killing machine in my vicinity?
No, no I am not.
Unless it provides me with a scan of the immediate surroundings showing all enemies on my minimap.
Particles, stuff that matters.
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.