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Report: Big Issues Remain Before Drones Can Safely Access National Airspace
coondoggie writes The story sounds familiar – while the use of unmanned [aerial vehicles], sometimes illegally, is increasing, there are myriad challenges to ultimately allow them safe access to national airspace. The watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office issued a report on the integration of unmanned aerial systems, as it calls them, in US national airspace (NAS) today ahead of a congressional hearing on the topic. As it has noted in past reports, the GAO said the main issues continue to include the ability for drones to avoid other aircraft in the sky; what backup network is available and how should the system behave if it loses its communications link.
I think that summary sets a new /. record for poor grammar.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
At the minimum, these are the requirements for somewhat safe integration into the existing airspace. Anything less is asking for big troubles for any private and commercial air traffic that shares the sky with these things:
1. Mode S Transponder
2. ADSB In & Out
3. Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)
4. May only operate in areas with active radar coverage under IFR flight plan (some legal airplanes do not have a transponder!)
4. Operators must be in constant contact and control of the drone and must be licensed pilots
5. altitude & airspace restrictions ( right of way: licensed drone rotorcraft fixed-wing airship )
Otherwise, they can keep below 300 AGL and in line of sight with their operators.
Anything less and drones will be a threat to anyone that flies on any airplane, anywhere.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
The United States is (or has been) the world leader in many areas of technology, such as computers, Internet, space exploration, and medicine. This happened in part because the government stayed out of the way, at least in the early phases of development. When it starts to clamp down too quickly, that innovation can be stifled, and move to other countries. We are seeing this happen particularly in medicine. Apparently, we aren't all that interested in being the leaders in drone development...at least, other than for purposes of war.
It would have been nice for the article to elaborate.
I have no concern for greasing bureaucrats palms - my concern is for my own life and the lives of those I share the skies with - as both a passenger and a pilot.
I've invested heavily in my flight training and I take the safety of myself, my passengers, and those I share the sky with very seriously.
Drone operators will take the safety of the entire aviation system seriously as well - either by will or by enforced regulation.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
The US government can't get shit done any more:
Outside of the US drones are indeed making headway way into general airspace. The GAO says Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, and Canada also allow more commercial UAS operations than the United States.
Every other country has a drone system and regulation set up and working but the US, we are behind in education, behind in Internet connectivity, behind in just about everything because this country is run by fucking morons and greedy little termites.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
FAA only has jurisdiction over navigable and restricted airspace. Which means that unless you are in restricted airspace, up to 500 ft is still faie game. 500ft is the limit on kites.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
if regulation of already regulated airspace is required to maintain safety in the sky, then so be it and I am all for it - as long as I can continue to use the sky without unnecessary restriction.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
First, the term "restricted airspace" isn't really the right term.
The terms you're looking for are "controlled" and "uncontrolled" airspace.
There are some places where controlled airspace goes all the way to the surface. Take off in a helicopter and go up 50 feet and you're in controlled airspace.
Other places, mostly out west in the mountains, sometimes controlled airspace doesn't start until 10,000 feet MSL, but those are rare outside of the Rockies.
Yes, you went to your school, paid a lot of money and now you own the skies and nobody else should get to use them. What a dick!
Just wait till everyone gets flying cars!
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Lose a friend or a family member in an airplane crash and you'll be a dick too.
The point isn't to 'own' the skies - it's to share as broadly and as safely as possible.
Just because you can afford to buy or operate some new tech toy doesn't mean you automatically have the right to go barging in to a complex engineered system without training and some reasonable adherence to regulations.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
In Denmark, they traffic regulating orginization is disussing these issues with the comercial parties. I am still missing the resume of the latest meeting.
Anti-collision is discussed, ADS-B was suggested, but everybody was afraid it would flood the frequency. So maybe something ADS-B like ? And policies about what drone will give way to which. Most ideas hinted, that GPS would be used to determine and broadcast position.
This still needs to be something for which planes can get receivers as well, and possible broadcast a wider ranging signal so clear a path in front of it approaching an airport.
I dug through the actual legislation (FAA charter) and that's what I found. I urge you to do the same. While controlled and uncontrolled ate the vernacular, the statutes that govern the FAA jurisdiction use "navigable". Therefore when speaking of legal matters and the FAA legal authority, we must use the same terms to prevent confusion.
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I don't think the GP is nitpicking the use of "navigable" but the use of "restricted". See the below link, restricted airspace means an area where general aviation is not allowed to enter (ex flying over the white house is permanent restricted airspace). Controlled airspace is the airspace around an airport which according to the FAA Advisory Circular is when a model aircraft operator must notify the control tower (note the circular does not say you cannot fly there, just that you must work with the control tower).
Interestingly the FPV article in wikipedia appears to be wrong, which scares me slightly as some people take that for bible. That article states you must be under 400 ft when in controlled airspace. However when I read the FAA Advisory Circular it appears to state you must always operate under 400 ft, in addition you must contact the tower when 3 miles from an airport (as in controlled airspace). But I could be misunderstanding something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Another issue is the approx 23 day train time to get Sentry Drones to V for the far better Tech II variants. Of course if you're going for distance from the drone then the 23d train for Sentry Interfacing to V may be a better use of time.
I used to have a good sig...
What people seem to be missing in all of the comments above is that Amazon and Google are investigating not just using unmanned arial vehicles, but they are also investigating using computer-controlled unmanned arial vehicles: that is, arial vehicles that are not flown with a human operator. So questions about "line of sight" or the nature of the license a human operator holds ignores the whole point of their research.
Beyond this, in order for a company like Amazon to make drone deliveries profitable, we're not talking about a handful of these devices. We're talking about a whole swarm of them making tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of trips a day in a congested area like Los Angeles, in and around the congested class B airspace of LAX, around the congested class C airspace around Burbank, Ontario and John Wayne, by helicopter traffic carrying police, news reporters and tourists, by student pilot traffic out in the San Fernando Valley.
(If a UPS driver makes 100 deliveries a day, as an article I recently read suggested, and assuming an out and back from a warehouse in El Monte takes on average an hour--half an hour each way--and assuming drone deliveries are handled during the same 10 hour window UPS driver operate--this implies it would take around 10 drones to replace that one driver, each making 10 deliveries a day. Multiply this by (as a guesstimate) 1,000 drivers in the Los Angeles area, and you're talking about 10,000 automated pilotless drones swarming the LA skies.)
Yeah, I'm going to lose a friend or family member because some kid decided to automate his quadcopter with a raspi or an arduino. Dream on! If that ever happens WTF was the pilot doing flying so low?!?!? This sounds more like an excuse to lock others out of your playground.
When dealing with the law, it is rarely as simple as a one sentence post on Slashdot will ever provide.
http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic...
There are two categories of airspace... regulatory and non-regulatory...
Within those, are 4 types:
Controlled
Uncontrolled
Special Use
Other
---------------
This is why there is pilot training and pilot certification, and why commercial pilots need more training than private pilots who only fly for fun.
It is more complex than the average layman probably suspects it is.
I don't think the GP is nitpicking the use of "navigable" but the use of "restricted". See the below link, restricted airspace means an area where general aviation is not allowed to enter (ex flying over the white house is permanent restricted airspace).
Yep, that is it... "restricted airspace" generally won't allow you in it for any reason whatsoever, such as over the White House.
The airspace around LAX is not restricted, it is controlled airspace, Class B to be specific.
Within a few miles of the airport, that controlled airspace goes all the way to the ground. You can't fly an aircraft at 100ft there without talking to ATC.
I've been working on an active/passive "sense and avoid" SAA technology for about 18 months and it is showing great promise.
Despite being a little larger than a deck of cards and weighing under 200g, the sense element can now accurately detect and track objects within a 1.5Km radius and the tracking system interpolates the trajectories of other craft to detect potential collision with the craft to which the system is fitted.
The goal is to produce a system that can be sold for hundreds (rather than thousands) of dollars and could therefore be fitted as standard equipment to a huge percentage of the unmanned (and manned) aircraft that fill our skies.
Unfortunately, here in NZ, the aviation regulator (CAA) has been hijacked by the national model aircraft group and, because I dared to criticize the latter, I my development work has been effectively halted by the former.
Never underestimate the ability of bureaucrats and bullies use claims of "safety" as a blunt weapon to "deal to" those they don't agree with. Their motto should be: "Safety At All costs -- no matter how many innocent souls must die".
Sigh!
The whole deal with CAA restricting your work is BS. You are free to fly what you like just by flying out of a farmers field more than 4km from a airfield. Does your system even compare to ADS-B? Small Linux computers can easily be used to receive ADS-B, and I expect they will be built into Quads and other hooby size aircraft soon. This way they will be able to avoid traffic long before it gets within 1.5km.
I am confident that CAA understand the issues. They have just released draft legislation which you obviously have not read yet, because if you had you would know that they are introducing a way of applying for permission to operate UAVs outside the hobby provisions. They are also going to remove the hobby references. I suggest you look it up and have a read.
What this new legislation will not do is integrate UAVs into normal airspace, and frankly until there is a reliable sense and avoid this is a position I support. Too many idiots out there who have little or no training flying Quads into controlled airspace. There needs to be real, reliable solutions for sense and avoid and technical enforcement of airspace before we open the integration door.
Frankly your hostile morally superior approach is not helping. The CAA has been very interested in an open conversation, and has listened to the community to come up with some regulations which are moving in the right direction. They have not addressed how to integrate airspace at this point, but they are not at all unreasonable. They are tasked with keeping the flying public safe, that must be the first priority.
I will be working on a proof of concept system which uses passive ADS-B for sense and avoid. This can detect aircraft potentially hundreds of kilometers away with precision. I also plan to extend the geo-fence system to ensure UAVs stays outside of controlled airspace and clear of terrain.