DronesU.S. drone companies: FAA’s proposed rules “onerous”

A week after the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) released its proposed rules for the commercial operation of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, several American companies are considering moving their existing or future drone operations to Europe, where, these companies contend, regulations governing drone use are less onerous. In France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and a few other European countries, drones are being used for delivery services, precision agriculture, and inspection of infrastructure such as power and pipelines. In the United States, the proposed FAA rules would make it impossible to successfully perform those operations.

One proposed rule requires commercial drones to remain in the line of sight of pilots on the ground. Michael Drobac, executive director of the Small UAV Coalition, which has twenty-four members, including Amazon, Google, and GoPro, said the line-of-sight limitation made no sense. “If the vehicle is 500 ft in the air, can a person on the ground objectively see it? To receive a view from the aircraft through an iPad or other device would improve visibility.” Drobac warns that “every member (of his group) is contemplating moving abroad for testing and development – they are all thinking about it. The set-up in the U.S. is not hospitable to testing.”

Amazon has plans to launch a delivery-by-drone service — Amazon Prime Air — in the United States, but the company recently told the Guardian that when the FAA’s proposed regulations take effect, in about two years’ time, “even then those rules wouldn’t allow Prime Air to operate in the United States.”

Airware, another coalition member, produces integrated software and hardware packages which control a drone’s flight systems and allow the streaming and analysis of data collected by its sensors. Jesse Kallman, the company’s director of business development, said the FAA’s proposals were “expected but disappointing” as they were far more restrictive than rules set by European regulators. Airware adds that technology already exists that can ensure safety in small commercial settings. “In France they have begun flying beyond line-of-sight, they only require a small camera on the nose of the aircraft so that the operator can detect aerial conflicts,” Kallman said, adding that geo-fencing technology can contain a drone within a specified three-dimension area, and autonomous systems can equip a drone to “think” for itself should it lose a GPS signal or contact with its operator.

“The technology exists: it’s extremely safe and it’s already being used in other countries,” he said. “We’re now seeing Europe — particularly the U.K., France and Germany — pulling ahead, as UAV manufacturers are being allowed to make use of this technology.”

The FAA also wants to prohibit commercial drone flights at night. “The restriction on night flight will be extremely limiting,” said Brendan Schulman, a lawyer who has been monitoring the domestic drone industry. He adds that the ban was puzzling as “it’s very easy to operate a [drone] safely at night when it’s lit up. Hobbyists are doing it all the time.”