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Only Self-Awareness Can Keep Drones Out of Do Not Fly Zones
szczys writes: Chris Anderson is on the bleeding edge of the drone world, having founded 3D Robotics (drone manufacturer) and DIY Drones (enthusiast site). He takes on the issue of people flying drones where they shouldn't, and concludes that making drones self aware is the best solution. This isn't the "robots are trying to kill you" type of self awareness. Instead, it considers drone type, operator, and location, to establish if all those factors equate to a safe flight area. This is an important issue — in the last few months, there have been several stories about drones in places they should not have been. This included incidents like disrupting the efforts of airborne firefighting and interfering with a police manhunt.
Our "awareness" is very like composed of a hierarchy of smaller "awareness" components... put enough of them together and you'll have something that's either as aware as you or a perfect representation of your awareness.
Whenever I read an article about "drones" they are invariable talking about radio controlled quad copters. They're not autonomous, they're controlled by individuals. People have been flying radio controlled planes as a hobby for 60+ years. We don't have a drone problem, we have a moron problem.
Problem not solved. Sure you can arrest and charge someone for breaking the rules but the vast majority of these cases are people not knowing any better. If these drones are interfering with full-sized aircraft, penalties don't prevent the danger presented by naive operators. This is an educational problem -- people need to know there are places you're not allowed to fly and that it's important to stay out of those with their hobby equipment.
I hate to say this, but we probably need to do it the other way around, and geofence the drones in designated areas for aircraft to avoid, much like model aircraft, high-power model rockets, etc. It's the way the military operates drones. They are only permitted to operate within Restricted or Warning areas or along designated corridors that are marked on VFR charts and listed in the NOTAMS.
What industry? My drone is fully autonomous and yet home made and open source. GPS fencing isn't as trivial as you think. There are literally millions of technical no fly zones and that doesn't even begin to consider transient zones like during fire fighting exercises.
GPS fencing is not only unenforceable but also technically infeasible.
replying to myself in bad form to add some more.
If Joe Schmoe is going to get his panties in a bunch if you fly a drone over his property he can buy a no-fly broadcaster of his own. Sounds like a win-win.
I refuse to sign
So basically have all technology set to be controlled by the government just in case they need to?
so basically you've decided to argue with something that nobody said
He's actually quite right, and pointing out an obvious side-effect of any "no-fly" system. Where do you think the "no-fly zones" come from? It's not happy little elves working in a North Pole workshop. They come from -- the FAA. "Government". Sometimes at the request of -- other government agencies (USFS, for forest fire TFRs, e.g.) or sometimes corporations (TFRs around sporting events.) If this system was implemented, what do you think it would take to ground all cooperating systems? Right -- one TFR from the FAA covering the entire US.
It will never happen? Remember 9/11?
Here's the real problem with this idea. There are sometimes reasons why flight should be authorized within a TFR or otherwise restricted area. Even on 9/11 and shortly thereafter, there were a limited number of flights allowed.
Any such system would have to include the "awareness" of the UAV that it is being used for an authorized purpose and not allow someone to just tell it "you're flying for an authorized purpose".
Sure you can arrest and charge someone for breaking the rules but the vast majority of these cases are people not knowing any better.
Then when they get arrested they will be educated. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. This is an excellent example of why that has to be the case.
If these drones are interfering with full-sized aircraft, penalties don't prevent the danger presented by naive operators.
I think it would not be very hard to make it abundantly clear that manslaughter charges could be applied.
In other cases of public assets like the airwaves we have required licensing to utilize them. Ham radio operators are a good example. I see no reason why we shouldn't require a license to operate a drone in any public airspace in a similar manner. Require sellers of drones to demand proof of an operator's license before they can sell their product. Then nobody can argue that they did not know AND we have a means to ensure appropriate training and use.
Given the state of AI research, I don't think you have anything to worry about.
"The only way to keep drones out of no-fly zones is to solve the hardest problem ever." Well, that will certainly motivate them! Surely, now we'll finally see something resembling progress...
Required reading for internet skeptics
My RC quadcopter (or "Drone") to the uninformed. Might, and I mean MIGHT weigh an ounce with the battery. An anemic puppy could destroy it in seconds. It carries no cameras and if I stop giving it real time instructions it will pretty much fall from the sky.
This is the "drone" that has fallen from the sky and landed on my cat and did not even wake the cat.
Yet I cannot take it to the local park because it is within a couple miles of an airport. This thing couldn't even make it to the airport on a single battery charge! Now you want to throw people in the slammer for it?
Way to overreact.
The article is about 3DR, who sells the Pixhawk (open source hardware flight controller). The hardware is open source. The software is open source (Missionplanner).
If the developers made airport no-fly zones un-fly-able, it would be trivial for the community to override. Also the developers would lose support. Currently Missionplanner does display airports, but it is for information purposes only (does not inhibit flying).
Also, this would only work if GPS was enabled. If it was disabled, or removed entirely, these no-fly zones wouldn't work. Many drones (cheaper) do not have GPS so this article doesn't apply to them.
even begin to consider transient zones like during fire fighting exercises.
The drones people are concerned about have to have computers and radios. I prefer 'technical' solutions rather than simply making flying a drone in a no-fly zone a felony.
As such, I suggest having a site such that the drone controls can pull the latest 'no-fly' listing rather easily from. That takes care of areas like Groom Lake. It can even catch most 'temporary' no-fly zones.
For the temporary, frequently updated no-fly zones, I suggest adding or dual-purposing a radio on drones, then whoever is declaring the no-fly zone drops or operates beacons around it that transmit that it's a no-fly zone. Stupid drones refuse to fly if they 'hear' one, preferably giving users as detailed of a reason as possible so the user isn't in the dark as to why their drone refuses to take off. A blink code or something, at a minimum. Smarter drones pull codes from the beacon telling it the GPS coordinates of the blocked area, and refuses to fly into them, again, preferably telling the user that it detects a no-fly zone close by.
If users then disable said systems, NOW you can consider hitting them with a felony.
I don't read AC A human right
I think this could be reasonably handled with geofences.
I'm very dubious that would work. It's a technical solution to a social problem and an impractical one at that. Technical solutions to social problems rarely work. In this case the appropriate answer would probably be some sort of drone pilot license to purchase and/or operate. Operation outside of private property without a license results in jail time and/or fines just like with an automobile or ham radio.
I'll give a self aware drone about 5 minutes before someone hacks their bios to load Cyanogen Drone OS because fuck you don't tell me what to do with my property even if it's violating someone else's property.
Personally, I find the idea of equipping drones above a certain class with a receiver such that it refuses to fly (or returns to launch area to land) if it detects a specific beacon signal to be acceptable, with the idea that it's on the operator's head if they hack their drone so it ignores the signal.
I don't read AC A human right
How about a two-part solution?
First, design a "Go Away!" transmitter. These could be deployed in security areas, wildfire areas, and where ever they are needed. Might use normal WiFi bands with a digital code.
Second, require that all drones be equipped with a receiver for these "Go Away!" transmitters. Reception of such a signal would cause the drone to reverse course and fly away until the signal was no longer received.
All people will do is unplug the GPS. Its an addon on most hobby drones anyways (Naza and Pixhawk).
And GPS for drones is not $5. Its not expensive, but its not $5 either. Try looking up M8n gps or NEO-7m
GPS is 1575mhz, which is affected by line-of-sight. If you don't have a clear line-of-sight, your location will be off. Inside my house, my location sometimes bounces around by 2 miles on my multirotor.
Outside its affected by anything that refracts, diffracts or reflects radio waves. IE power lines, buildings, anything really. Power lines near my drone put it 10 feet to the opposite side.
Or if you really want to affect it, just cup your hands around it. Doesn't take much to interfere with it.
How do you feel about over flights from:
Helicopters (Private, commercial, ambulance, police, military)
Light aircraft( hot air balloons, paragliders, hang gliders, ultralights)
Private aircraft.
Commercial/military jets.
Imaging satellites.
You don't think twice about any of these aircraft, and many are indeed photographing you and your property(Google and government imaging, property appraiser aerial photography...). But a $800 toy helicopter draws a knee jerk reaction? Get over yourself!
As such, I suggest having a site such that the drone controls can pull the latest 'no-fly' listing rather easily from.
Computer and radio do NOT imply internet connection.
If users then disable said systems, NOW you can consider hitting them with a felony.
Why? It's not like it's currently legal to fly in no-fly zones. Why should another law make it any different?
Also while we're at it let's compare it to other government mandated software that has been forced on the world:
- We have eliminated piracy by blocking the use of certain software - nope.
- We have prevented encryption from falling into "enemy" hands using export laws - nope.
- We have successfully geo-fenced media software by controlling it at the source - nope.
None of the government's attempts to regulate software have ever worked. In a more physical sense we have electronic devices that electrocute people, burn people's houses down, and generally are nasty nasty pieces of shit from China which fail to comply with all government regulations. If we can't stop these's simple physical devices, how do you propose we regulate a flight controller that is based around open source software that can easily be loaded onto any commodity hardware?
What you're effectively saying is that we can do the equivalent of eliminating computer based crime by having the government mandate which software we use. It won't work. Ever.