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US Army Walks Back Decision To Ban DJI Drones Ever So Slightly (suasnews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the tread-carefully dept.

garymortimer shares a report from sUAS News: News has reached me that another DJI memo was passed around on Friday the 11th of August. An exception to policy with recommendations from the asymmetric warfare group that will permit the use of DJI kit once some conditions have been met. The Android Tactical Assault Kit will become the ground control station (GCS) of choice when a DJI plugin has passed OPSEC (Operational Security) scrutiny. In a separate report from Reuters, DJI said it is "tightening data security in the hopes that the U.S. Army will lift its ban on DJI drones because of 'cyber vulnerabilities.'" The company is "speeding deployment of a system that allows users to disconnect from the internet during flights, making it impossible for flight logs, photos or videos to reach DJI's computer servers," reports Reuters. While the security measure has been in the works for several months, it's being rolled out sooner than planned because of the Army's decision to discontinue the use of DJI drones.

1 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Five - ten years ahead by Max_W · · Score: 3, Interesting

    DJI is several years ahead of its competitors, including US companies. In tech industry it is forever.

    I see on youtube a lot of videos as in the USA people are fined routinely for flying a tiny quad-copter say in a national park (while one can fly a huge and really loud helicopter there all right). There are enforced bans of tens of miles in radius around large cities, etc.

    Instead of creating such obstacles in a negative way, a government in fact could do a lot for the development of this industry. For example create spacious RPAS (UAV) parks were people could come with their unmanned aircraft and pilot freely (perhaps with technical guidance?). Or teach students in schools UAV electronics, aerodynamics, piloting, meaningful regulations, safety.

    But instead we see only ban this, ban that. So as a result we see as the US and European civil UAV industry is lagging behind. It is not possible to build a hundred of good quad-copters or fixed-wing civil RPAS. A base, a mass market is necessary for this.