We Need Ground Rules If Drone Technology Is To Take Off

(Source: The Guardian)  

Everybody has seen them, in parks, at sporting events and even filming current events. Drones are becoming commonplace and have reached a maturity in their control where they can be sold as toys that don’t need an expert to fly them. The EU select committee in the House of Lords has recommended caution in the regulation of drones – especially important, it suggests, if public confidence is to increase to a point where they are accepted as solutions for tasks such as delivering parcels for Amazon, spraying crops or providing security at large events.

Media reports do not help the cause. When a quadcopter lowered a flag during an international football match between Serbia and Albania, the Premier League was prompted to ask for advice on similar incidents. And when a DJI Phantom was flown on to the south lawn of the White House, it caused a lockdown and full investigation. A collection of unexplained drone flights over Paris earlier in March also caused alarm.

As the numbers of vehicles sharply increases, the number of incidents like these will, inevitably, rise. The expansion of this technology throws up considerable legal implications. Who, for example, will be responsible when an incident occurs? Will it be the drone owner, the operator, the pilot or the software developer? Lawyers and engineers need to sit together to establish the legal ground rules to ensure technology develops at pace with regulation to ensure safety and security are never playing catch-up.

The public is right to be cautious. After all, it takes little imagination to see that these vehicles can be used for both good and nefarious purposes. A drone flying under control from GPS, for example, provides a delivery platform for any terrorist organisation, being able to fly to a given point and endanger safety. Regulation is clearly necessary, but before we can put effective rules in place, we need additional technology that can mitigate these risks, and enable clear strategies that can increase confidence and ultimately allow the benefits of safe autonomous flying vehicles to be delivered.

The recommendations of the select committee call for users of drones to be registered. This should be a basic requirement of future legislation. However, a clear distinction needs to be drawn between a simple drone and a toy. This could be based on weight: drones over 4kg or a self-built drone over 1kg should be registered and require a flying licence that links a pilot to a drone, which should then be stored onboard. While regulation will provide a deterrent, it does not provide comprehensive protection as many operators are unaware, or are willingly ignoring regulation, as the spate of recent arrests for drone incursion has shown.

The problem is that the rapid growth and interest in drones has outpaced the technology available to support effective regulation. The use of geo-fencing, partitioning an area off using GPS co-ordinates as a virtual boundary, is an excellent idea, but most off-the-shelf quadcopters like the DJI Phantom or Parrot AR Drone don’t include GPS as standard and can easily be modified to remove it. A no fly zone is not compatible with common off-the-shelf hobbyists platforms. Future platforms should include GPS as a non-removable component.

Continue Reading at TheGuardian.com…