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Drones Still Face Major Hurdles In US Airspace
coondoggie writes "Communications and effective system control are still big challenges unmanned aircraft developers are facing if they want unfettered access to U.S. airspace. Those were just a couple of the conclusions described in a recent Government Accountability Office report on the status of unmanned aircraft (PDF) and the national airspace. The bottom line for now seems to be that while research and development efforts are under way to mitigate obstacles to safe and routine integration of unmanned aircraft into the national airspace, these efforts cannot be completed and validated without safety, reliability, and performance standards, which have not yet been developed because of data limitations."
The FAA and others seem mostly concerned about the drones hitting things if their GPS and ground communications are both disrupted.
We don't need thousands of unmanned vehicles zipping around in the skies malfunctioning and crashing into things and people.
And this is not even considering privacy and security implications. At least manned vehicles have a sufficient barrier to entry (expensive) and a motivation to be extremely reliable (because the occupants will die if not).
Why can't they just fly OVER the hurdles?
^ Probably Sarcasm...
My suspicion is that once drones start to become more ubiquitous in US Airspace, pecople here will come up with ways to interfere with them. In other countries directly targeted by the drones, they haven't been very successful, but in the US all it will take will be a few backyard hobbyists who really really really have issues with drones, and they will come up with an easy way to interfere/take over/destroy/ shoot down said drones...and this technology, whatever it is, will be then used by people in other countries to take out OUR drones.
So putting drones in US airspace is actually a stupid counterproductive thing, on many fronts.
banning drones in their air space is going to be a major hurdle.
Seems like systematic reduction in rights and progressively more 1984 and Brave New World type policies have caused a reaction. Just in time too, Houston got caught trying to sneak drones into service with absolutely no public input. Texas responded recently with a state-wide ban. Last thing we need is a president checking his smile for food particles in his reflection on his Nobel Peace Prize right before ordering U.S. citizens murdered like he does Middle Eastern ones.
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The only UAV that's close to airworthy is Northrop's billion dollar disaster of the Global Hawk. Of course, airworthiness is a big part of the reason that they cost $50M apiece. None of the rest of the UAVs are airworthy. Not even remotely. They all have severe design flaws that render them reasonable only for overwater, over the ocean, or combat zones. None of them are designed with the rigour or safety focus that's required for a small airplane, much less something that's in commercial service. All of them have software single point of failure problems that will cause them to crash in an unpredictable place.Triton and the Global Hawk will, at least, crash in a pre-planned, surveyed spot. None of the rest.
I see no reason to allow anything over 55 lbs to fly unless it's designed to the same level of safety and airworthiness as "real airplanes", because the physics works the same way when it hits you. I'm not saying "no" to UAV's, but start over and do it right.
So if there's a mid-air collision between a private or commercial aircraft and a drone flown by a government agency, the usual legal protections will probably shield the drone operators from liability. The thought of that kinda sucks.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
How many have considered purposefully interfering with surveillance drones?
Since Britain is considering turning off active airport radar, and using TV signals, one would think that hobbyists could do similar things to track surveillance drones.
And then actively interfering with their ability to surveil by using maybe high powered IR lasers, carefully aimed microwave transmitters, or similar aimed at them.
I got my stuff ready to take over anything that flys in my zone. going to be doing some nice Enders Game fun things with downed drones.
My nighbors already have seen my spy planes flying overhead and have been okay with them.
what if the Federal Gov creates drones that specifically lock on to drones and that drone destroys a sheriffs drone from somewhere in Iowa like Stubenville. would the Supreme court get involved?
This is why I have been working on a practical "sense and avoid" (SAA) system for UAVs and FPV RC models.
So far so good (very good in fact) and I expect to start the airborne testing of a prototype very shortly.
The goal was to have the reliable detection of full-sized aircraft at a minimum range of 1.5Km and not rely on transponders or other equipment in those aircraft and it appears that this objective is attainable.
It's been a lot of fun developing this thing and it's something that has really only become possible recently, now that we've got some seriously powerful processors capable of handling the signal processing involved without the need for a rack-sized box and an appetite for watts.
If it works "as planned", odds are that I'll be releasing this as an open-source, copyleft project so hobbyists can use it instead of it becoming the sole domain of the "drone" companies.
hey, as long has they have a man with a red lantern proceed each drone so horses aren't spooked, I'm sure the Pennsylvania legislature will be fine with it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
We don't need thousands of unmanned vehicles zipping around in the skies malfunctioning and crashing into things and people.
And this is not even considering privacy and security implications. At least manned vehicles have a sufficient barrier to entry (expensive) and a motivation to be extremely reliable (because the occupants will die if not).
"We don't need" is hardly a reason to make something illegal in itself. The phrase is a lazy rhetorical device.
Further, what makes you think such machines wouldn't be orders of magnitude more reliable than human drivers (who can get drunk, old, preoccupied, poisoned by testosterone, or succumb to idiocy), who operate much heavier equipment, and in closer proximity to potential victims? You seem to be presuming no one can come up with an effectual means to prevent a malfunctioning device from causing damage, which seems implausible, given the fact that a simple airbag like mechanism that slows the rate of descent would probably serve reasonably well in many situations, especially in conjunction with the same kind of laws that restrict helicopter flight over populous areas.
You'd do better to focus on why the privacy and security issues cannot be similarly resolved, instead of merely mentioning them whilst waving your hands wildly about. Surely photography and recording technology itself poses serious privacy and security issues, but this would have a been lousy reason for banning the public use of cameras and microphones.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Drones over Afghanistan are one thing, but flying them over thousands of tech-happy hackers in SoCal or MA is another. And once domestic countermeasures have been developed, how long till the technology spreads overseas?
I want to see an electronics box which:
- scans for the unencrypted video feed on the frequencies drones use
- sounds an audio alarm when it finds one
- displays the video feed on a local screen
- immediately begins streaming the video off-site (for record-keeping)
Anyone have an idea on how affordable / expensive / reliable such a thing could / would be?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Why can't they just fly OVER the hurdles?
They could, but it would be too expensive in terms citizens' taxes spent on fuel.
The FAA and others seem mostly concerned about the drones hitting things if their GPS and ground communications are both disrupted
Fear not, hurdles are only temporary... I mean... look: if one is able to use explosives and still doesn't have the desired results, it simply means one is not using enough of them. Hitting the hurdles with the appropriate amount of explosives will surely clear them... after that, everybody (still living) will be protected by them drones.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
So I'm looking into plans for a home-built narrow-beam EMP generator...
Whoops, just got put on the The Bad Guy List. Again.
>> these efforts cannot be completed and validated without safety, reliability, and performance standards
Translation: We know that drones falling out of the sky will kill and main a lot of our citizens. However, we need someone to make a call on how many deaths-per-million-flights (or other metric) is an acceptable number.
So glad that my fellow Americans are baying sheep and happy to allow these to watch them.
I have lost ALL respect for my fellow Americans. They all love the PATRIOT act, they all love being fondled at the airport, and they all WANT to be watched.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Drones are illegal in Seattle.
Be a shame if someone used a 3D printer and some filament wire or some ground lasers to take one of them out, if they happened to stray into our airspace.
Just saying.
A real shame ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
what happens when someone takes control of a drones flight control system causing it to crash? (possibly into buildings or people) who is responsible if the operator cannot be located?
Obama himself reportedly signs off personally on each target.
Obama's legal people do not call it "assassinations".
The call it "targeted killing"
http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano86.1.html
by Andrew P. Napolitano - a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge.
- state and federal laws that expressly prohibit non-judicial killing
- an executive order signed by every president from Gerald Ford to Obama prohibiting American officials from participating in assassinations
- the absence of a declaration of war against Yemen, treaties expressly prohibiting this type of killing
- the Declaration, which guarantees the right to live, and the Constitution, which requires a jury trial before the government can deny that right
- The president cannot lawfully order the killing of anyone, except according to the Constitution and federal law.
U.S. media complicit in Obama's drone doctrine
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/02/06/f-vp-macdonald-us-drones.html
It’s also clear American media outlets are comfortable suppressing news the government does not want published. Today’s story reveals not just that the Americans have operated a secret drone base for years in Saudi Arabia, but that the Post, along with various other news organizations, have been keeping that fact to themselves at the government’s request.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/22/why-obamas-killer-drones-violate-international-law/
In May we learned that the President personally maintains a “Kill List” and holds weekly meetings during which, as judge, jury and executioner, he determines who lives and who dies. It was also revealed that the President counts all military-age males killed in drone strikes as militants.
http://livingunderdrones.org/report-legality/
Intentionally targeting rescuers and the wounded are clear violations of international humanitarian law and US rules of warfare.
Regardless of one’s assessment of the legality of the recourse to the use of force (jus ad bellum)–the use of force against a specific individual must also comply with either international humanitarian law (in the context of an armed conflict) or international human rights law (outside armed conflict). In this regard, the legality of so-called “signature strikes” is highly suspect, as are attacks resulting in significant civilian casualties, attacks on first responders and funerals, and the targeting of individuals not engaged in the Afghanistan theater, particularly those who do not pose an imminent threat;
http://livingunderdrones.org/
Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children,
The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims.
http://livingunderdrones.org/report-legality/
Well, if the drones are good for the Afghan airspace and Yemeni airspace, why wouldn't they be good for the U.S. airspace?
If they can make small, lightweight drones, why not large ones? It would be an interesting take on delivering the mail.
Large drones, distribute to smaller drones, distribute to single mail delivery sized drones dropping little packages off on your door step. Maybe not today, but a potential future application? Sets the imagination a'buzz...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Send a few drones over my city and see how long it takes some bored hacker to gain control of one and smash int into a police cruiser or something. Bonus points if they're armed with missiles.
We worry about drones, take about meeting the safety standards of existing airplanes and then this shows up:
http://www.autoblog.com/2013/02/20/ultralight-makes-a-runway-free-gas-and-go/
This is interesting: these machines are safe enough to fly over middle easy countries, but not safe enough to fly over US.
Established US legal doctrine says that drones in US airspace are perfectly legal as long as they're being operated by foreign militaries.
fencepost
just a little off
measures they can take against devices like these http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/13/gps-jammers-uk-roads-risks?
What about the threat from below .
I refer to the snow giants who are plotting revenge for our melting their habitat, with icy stares in their crusted lairs, in ... dun dun dun, Antartica .
Cute penguins with happy feet slipping and sliding on purulent piles of poop aren't the real worry here...
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Imagine selling electronics and supplies for miniature surface to air missiles that can be produced by 3D printers.
Paranoia + inventiveness = profit.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Though the idea of using drones for espionage is not a good one either.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
We love 'em over here!
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