Aviation International News reports that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) “met with FAA safety inspectors and law enforcement officials in 11 of the aviation agency’s districts to determine how they investigate potentially unsafe small (under 55 pounds) unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).” A report by the GAO incorporated this issue in its recommendations that the FAA improve communication and data in the agency’s approach to compliance and enforcement for UAS. In the report, the GAO “recommends that the FAA develop a better approach to communicate to local law enforcement agencies its expectations for their role in UAS investigations and identify data needed to evaluate FAA’s small UAS compliance and enforcement activities.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)
Tag: UAS
FPL Says New Drone Can Help Survey Damage During Hurricane Season
The AP reports that Florida Power and Light “is ready to launch a powerful new technology, just ahead of the busiest weeks of the Atlantic hurricane season: a new fixed-wing drone designed to fly into tropical storm force winds and speed the restoration of electricity after severe weather.” The utility’s FPLAir One drone “resembles a small plane and is remotely operated, enabling the utility to capture and deliver images and video of damaged electrical equipment in real time to its command center.” In a statement, FPL CEO Eric Silagy said, “Rather than going out and try to figure out what’s going on, we’re able to save hours and days on getting the lights on.”
Full Story (Associated Press)
FAA Publishes Means of Compliance for UAS Manufacturers
Aviation International News reported that the FAA “has published a means of compliance (MOC) for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) manufacturers to meet the requirements for providing remote identification capability and remote identification broadcast modules for UAS. FAR Part 89, which was published last year, requires that after Sept. 16, 2022, no unmanned aircraft can be produced without FAA-approved remote ID capability.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)
USN Tests SMAMD System on MQ-8C
Seapower Magazine reported that the US Navy recently had a successful demonstration of an MQ-8C Fire Scout UAS carrying the “Single-system Multi-mission Airborne Mine Detection (SMAMD) System.” The tests included “drifting, tethered and moored mines throughout beach zone to deep waters,” both night and day, in various water depths, and during various weather conditions. The SMAMD System, developed by BAE Systems for the Office of Naval Research, can perform detections in a single pass, with “low false alarm rate,” and sends “real-time detection sent via data link” which enables rapid response.
Full Story (Seapower Magazine)
Northrop Grumman-Built Fire Scout Deployed Aboard USS Jackson
ExecutiveGov reports that the US Navy “has deployed a Northrop Grumman-built Fire Scout autonomous helicopter aboard an Independence-class littoral combat ship to support maritime intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting missions in the Indo-Pacific area.” The MQ-8C Fire Scout “on USS Jackson marks the unmanned aircraft system’s first operational deployment to the region.”
Full Story (ExecutiveGov)
Drones Need More Room to Grow
Panelists: Moderator Dallas Brooks, director, Raspet Flight Research Laboratory, Mississippi State University, and co-chair, FAA’s UAS Science and Research Panel; John Cavolowsky, director, Airspace Operations and Safety Program, Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, NASA headquarters; Jonathan Evans, CEO, Skyward; Diane Gibbens, president and CEO, Trumbull Unmanned; Charlie Keegan, chairman elect, Air Traffic Control Association; Michael Singer, CEO, DroneView Technologies
by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer
The transformation of the country’s airspace to manage more traffic is well underway, and now is the time to give drones more areas to access to help develop standards, experts said June 16 at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.
In the panel, “Transformation in the National Airspace System,” Jonathan Evans, CEO of Skyward, said the UAS industry wants to make the NAS safer in a technical, innovative and synergistic way.
“We can transform the national airspace by allowing drone operators to be in that space,” he said.
That begins with flight recordkeeping, which Evans says currently “is pretty dusty.”
“We can take the complexities of those records and can provide more elegant, simplified tools in a way that hasn’t been done before in aviation,” he said.
Mike Singer, CEO of DroneView Technologies, said his company collects data, stitches it together to form 3D models and creates maps of topography, providing tools to solve real problems about airspace usage.
“We are acting as a catalyst to bring this technology to the market,” he said.
Air traffic controllers also need to be involved in the discussion, said Charlie Keegan, chairman elect of the Air Traffic Control Association. He maintained they are the keepers of history and don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
“We want to have a voice in how the airspace is managed,” Keegan said. “We want to say what it should be to give more understanding and clarity to the FAA studying it.”
Singer agreed, saying the FAA should be a reviewer of standards, not a generator.
UAS users are saturating the sky with their devices, Evans said, meaning that the transformation of the national airspace is happening on its own.
“It’s like the internet — it’s programmatic,” he explained, adding that the transformation of the airspace is about commercial demand of that airspace.
“Give us access,” Evans said. “We need to come into urban spaces. That is the evolution we need to help us go forward.”
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Developers Charged With Making UAS a More Trusted and Autonomous System
Panelists: Moderator I.J. Hudson, former technology reporter, NBC4 Washington (WRC-TV); Brian Argrow, professor of aerospace engineering sciences, University of Colorado; Michael S. Francis, chief advanced programs and senior fellow, United Technologies Research Center; Parimal H. Kopardekar, manager, Safe Autonomous Systems Operations Project, and principal investigator, Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management, NASA’s Ames Research Center; John Langford, chairman and CEO, Aurora Flight Sciences Corp.; Richard Wlezien, professor and Vance and Arlene Coffman endowed department chair in aerospace engineering and director, Iowa Space Grant Consortium, Iowa State University
by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer
Getting a more autonomous unmanned aerial system to understand what it needs to do with less human direction and finding ways to control it in the airspace are crucial issues for developers, according to a June 15 panel of experts at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.
Sandy Magnus, executive director of AIAA, introduced the panel, “The Changing Face of Aerospace: The Impact of UAS on Aviation,” by pointing out users are helping developers understand what needs to happen in design, presenting a shift in the usual method of product development. Now, she said, it’s up to policymakers and lawmakers to make decisions regarding the limitations of technology and its advantages.
Jay Gundlach, founder and president of Flighthouse Engineering LLC, said that UASs are so early in development that we don’t even know what to call them yet.
Parimal Kopardekar, manager of the Safe Autonomous System Operations Project and principal investigator for NASA’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management, said that one of the main principles in drone operations is understanding the value of constraints.
“We are talking about managing traffic that has to be as flexible as possible,” he said. “We will be setting up the rules of the road.”
In terms of education for next-generation UAS developers, Richard Wlezien, the department chair in aerospace engineering and director of the Iowa Space Grant Consortium at Iowa State University, said it has been frustrating because drone flights are too restrictive.
“Imagine training to be a physician and not being allowed in the operating room,” he said. “We have long way to go to open up airspace to students.”
Brian Argrow, professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado, said he sees three growing applications of drones: rescue missions, national security, and climate and weather prediction.
“Agriculture has not been a top application,” he said. “But there is a project underway now about soil moisture management using a small UAS.”
One of the biggest issues panel members discussed was trust.
“As they become more autonomous, software for drones has to have some level of trust that they will make the correct decisions,”Argrow said.
That issue is being worked on now, according to Michael Francis, chief advanced programs and senior fellow at the United Technologies Research Center.
“We want the UAS system to be able to learn,” he said. “That’s the part of the industry that is going to grow, because we need to be able to operate safely under expected contingencies.”
Panelists all agreed standards are needed but cautioned that when they are made, they are hard to change or adjust.
“We need to be careful what we put in place and be careful about the nature of standards and what the intent is,” Kopardekar said. “We need to ask ‘What could it stop in the future?’”
| All 2016 AIAA AVIATION Forum Videos |