Drone Makers Add Geofencing To Keep Drones Out of Restricted Airspace (roboticstrends.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Two of the biggest drone manufacturers, DJI and 3D Robotics, are adding geofencing systems to their products to keep them out of restricted airspace. DJI's Geospatial Environment Online will be available on current versions of the Phantom, Inspire and Matrice drones, providing updated data on restricted flight zones due to regulation or safety concerns, including forest fires, major stadium events, VIP travel and other circumstances. GEO will also include restrictions around areas such as prisons, power plants and more. GEO, by default, will not allow DJI drones to fly in restricted areas. However, DJI is allowing its users to "temporarily unlock or self-authorize" flights in some locations. 3D Robotics will add the safety information software to its Solo smart drone app, containing basic information about federal guidelines (stay five miles from an airport, for example), national parks, airbases and more.

Comments

Oh, goody

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, "restricted airspace" for drones included some hilariously large areas - check out what appears to be the official map. Note that includes five miles from airports (why I can't legally fly drones at my own house) and anywhere in a national park.

Re:Oh, goody

[Opportunist]

But we can maybe agree that it might be a good idea to not fly around like an idiot near airports?

Re: Oh, goody

[WarJolt]

You have as much right to use airspace as you have a right to a public road. You just have to follow the rules. The FFAs primary concern is to make sure the airspace is safe for everyone, so ya they can restrict its use.

You can fly a drone near an airport if you contact the tower first. Class C airspace typically goes to the ground near airport. The typical requirement for aircraft is you must be in 2 way communication with the tower.

I do believe that the requirement for commercial drone flight is a bit to harsh. You currently need to hold a private pilot certificate. The intent is if you're already a pilot they know you can read a chart and follow the rules. Additionally you need to file a section 333 exemption and wait 4 months to give you the same boiler plate exemption they are giving to everyone else. Really this is a temporary measure thats is probably going to take far too long. The exemption that they give comes with restrictions that pretty clearly spells out what they view the requirements should be.

On the other hand non commercial use is a bit too permissive. You should at least have to pass a simple training course, so you at least know what not to do.

If you contact the airport before flight you can fly in your back yard near and airport as a "hobbiest".

Re:Oh, goody

[fremsley471]

Nope, it's for the visitors to the park to enjoy the peace and quiet. I'd be happy to let planes fly over, as soon as the planes carry enough sound-proofing to make them inaudible from the ground.

Last time we were in Sequoia National Park, we climbed Moro Rock. Apart from our fellow tourists, the only sounds were natural. As we stood on the top, a couple military jet fighters flew west-east at very high altitude (guesstimate FL300) and they were still intrusively audible.

Imagine if the yahoos in small private planes were allowed to buzz around the parks? "Let's go circle General Sherman. Look, it's that one! Not that one, that one. No, that one. I'll go around again. It's that one. That one. No, that's General Grant, it's that one! I'll go around again..."

Re:Oh, goody

[Opportunist]

Yup. Say thanks to those that didn't turn on their brain before turning on their drone and did not fly just inside their fence and at eye level. "There is no law against it, so I can do what I want".

Well. Now we got a law. I hope these idiots are happy now. The solution to those people not thinking for a moment and applying moderation where it would have been sane means that it's now being taken away from us.

Maybe if we did that to our kids again we, as a society, may instill that responsibility again. The older ones here may remember how it was when we were young. We got to play and the rules were, well, vague. But there were some "general" rules that we did have to consider, and at least my parents required me to use common sense when pondering whether something was or was not allowed. And "but you didn't say I can't do that" was not really a suitable excuse when I did something really stupid that I should have known better. And, in turn, if I could not play sensibly with something, it was taken away from me.

Pretty much what happens now. I guess if people fail to learn as kids, what they get as adults pretty much has to be a nanny state...

Re:Like RF Limits In Wireless Firmware??

[BlacKSacrificE]

These would be the sort of people I would be happy to see return their drone for a full refund. They are the cancer of the RC community. We have been buzzing plywood around for decades with nowhere near this much trouble, their exclusion from the hobby will be of zero consequence, and a relief to responsible flyers who are being thrown under the bus with the idiots.

Re:Like RF Limits In Wireless Firmware??

[Opportunist]

Where do I sign?

As an old RC pilot, I get fed up with this kind of people, too. Back when I was young (and the snow was THIS high, even in Summer...), there was no geofencing or anything like that. Oddly, we still didn't fly our planes near airports. Or near hazards. Or near populated land. Or anywhere where simple COMMON SENSE told you that it would be at the very least idiotic, to not use a stronger word, to fly your plane (or helicopter, or whatever) there.

Because people knew what consideration was. People THOUGHT before acting. And people most of all knew that actions have consequences.

But somehow that was lost in the past years somehow. Everyone's entitled to do whatever he pleases and as soon as (not if. Not even when) he fucks up, he blames everyone and their dog, the manufacturer of the gadget that got him into trouble and of course legislation for not protecting him from being a total moron.

Fuck them.

5 mile radius exclude the entire bay area

[viking80]

If drones are geofenced to stay 5 miles from airports, all of the bay area is excluded. It is about 30 airports in the area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Solution seems obvious.

[drinkypoo]

I pilot (non-robotic) quadcopters, not drones, and let me tell you that without a fair bit of practice a "drone pilot" will do little more than crash his expensive plastic without the robotic positioning. I don't think that the current models even come with a proper transmitter for really controlling the flight, a good transmitter costs more than the flight hardware. The GPS is used for more than navigation, for instance I believe that some devices don't have accelerometers and use the GPS to hold altitude, position, and heading.

Well, no. The GPS is used for position and speed, if the manufacturer is competent then that's it. You can't get reliable altitude measurements from it, that's where GPS is weakest and most of these tiny antennas are lucky to pull in four sats. A barometer is used for altitude and at least 3DOF sensors are used for flight control. If you want auto-leveling flight, you need 6DOF. You are going to also need a barometer for altitude, though. You can throw in 3 more degrees with a magnetic sensor, which is enough to get absolute orientation. Where the GPS comes in is in position hold, return to home, or waypoint flying. That's the only place the typical drone uses it at all.

For basic self-leveling flight, the only sensors needed are on a 6DOF sensor board, e.g. MPU6050 or similar. That's one chip. For fully controlled flight with RTH and PH you need 7DOF (6DOF plus magnetic heading), Baro, and GPS. Most fancy-pants drones are going to use 9DOF plus baro and GPS. A 3DOF mag sensor is much better than a basic compass, because it can be used in other orientations than flat.

I'm not an expert, but I've built two drones recently (one quad, one fixed-wing) and forked Multiwii so as to add sd card logging support to it...

The "permanent" restrictions, such as those around Washington, DC (not Washington as mentioned in the poor article) and airports will probably require a way to either flash the storage medium via JTAG or decrypt the traffic. I figure the community will take less than a year before it figures out one or the other, based on how quickly other consumer devices are cracked.

I would be shocked and amazed if they were actually doing anything meaningful to keep users out of the device. Probably the biggest impediment to anyone bothering to hack these drones so far is that it's too easy and cheap to just build your own, or to buy a RTF kit that's made out of parts you could have bought yourself and which has no geofencing. Most of the really cheap drones (e.g. with atmega328-based FCs) don't have the room for geofencing code! And even the ones that do have room don't do it, although I can see it coming in the future. It might even be a fun feature to develop.