Cosmic Log
The Federal Aviation Administration launched its registration website for recreational drones on Dec. 21 – and based on the initial reports, it was a rough ride.
Some would-be registrants reported seeing nothing but a blank screen when they clicked the button to sign up at RegisterMyUAS.FAA.gov. Some said they couldn’t use their credit card to pay the $5 registration fee, or encountered database mix-ups.
Get the full story on GeekWire.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s drone registration process will be as easy as making an online purchase. In fact, it is an online purchase, with a few extra rules and conditions.
The FAA’s online system won’t go live until Monday – but Chris Foster, an IT manager for the agency, demonstrated how it’ll work for journalists today.
Drone operators will be required to sign up if their remote-controlled aerial vehicles weigh more than 0.55 pounds (250 grams). If the drone is heavier than 55 pounds (25 kilograms), or if it’s going to be used for commercial purposes, you’ll have to register through the FAA’s more complicated paper-based process.
At the end of the online process, you’ll get a registration certificate via email, and you can also print out the certificate from your online account. You’ll have to mark the registration number on all the drones you own, and carry the certificate (on paper or electronically on your smartphone) when you’re flying the drone.
The Federal Aviation Administration has laid out the rules for registering recreational drones, starting Dec. 21, plus the penalties for those who don’t.
It’s not likely that drone police will be watching the skies, but if your unregistered drone gets into trouble, you could get into trouble as well: You’ll be required to have a registration certificate when you fly your drone outdoors, and the drone will have to be marked with a registration number.
Failure to do so could leave you open to civil penalties of up to $27,500, or criminal penalties including fines of up to $250,000 and three years in prison.
“Make no mistake: Unmanned aircraft enthusiasts are aviators, and with that title comes a great deal of responsibility,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a news release. “Registration gives us an opportunity to work with these users to operate their unmanned aircraft safely. I’m excited to welcome these new aviators into the culture of safety and responsibility that defines American innovation.”
One of the world’s best-known drone manufacturers, DJI, has partnered with one of the world’s best-known infrared imaging companies, FLIR Systems, to create thermal-imaging cameras for aerial vehicles.
But don’t expect to take your DJI Phantom out for night-vision flights anytime soon: These cameras are designed for higher-end drones and specialized applications. And besides, the Federal Aviation Administration hasn’t cleared drones for routine nighttime flying.
he cameras coming out of the collaboration between China-based DJI and Oregon-based FLIR are more likely to be used during the day – for example, to help firefighters see through smoke, to help farmers monitor crop health from above, or to assist in search-and-rescue operations. Infrared imaging is particularly well-suited for those applications, day or night.
And sure, if law enforcement agents are looking for the bad guys after dark, thermal-imaging drones can come in handy. Night-vision aerial imagery, conducted using a camera-equipped helicopter, played a crucial role in capturing Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The hybrid drone design that Amazon unveiled over the weekend may be only one of several under consideration for delivering packages in 30 minutes or less, but it’s a doozy: The beefed-up Prime Air flier pushes the envelope on technical as well as regulatory grounds.
On the technical side, the prototype shown in Amazon’s video uses an array of rotors (eight, according to The Guardian) to take off vertically, then switches on an additional rotor to buzz through the air horizontally at up to 60 mph. The Guardian says it may be the first vertical-horizontal hybrid air vehicle to weigh in at less than 55 pounds, which is the upper limit for commercial delivery drones.
An autonomous sense-and-avoid navigation system keeps the drone from running into other objects on the way to its destination, at an altitude of up to 400 feet. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed off a sense-and-avoid system last month, but that one was designed to handle obstacles at a mere 30 mph – half the speed that’s built into Amazon’s specs.
The drone is also apparently designed to home in on a landing pad, perhaps equipped with an RFID tag or transmitter. The idea is that customers would lay out the pad in their backyard or some other open space in preparation for package delivery. (Can you buy a pad like that on Amazon yet? What if it’s raining, or if you’re an apartment dweller?)
The Federal Aviation Administration has released a task force’s recommendations for setting up a registration system for recreational drones – and the full report includes fresh details about how the system would work.
The main recommendations filtered out two weeks ago, soon after the task force wrapped up its meeting in Washington, D.C.: The registration procedure should apply to unmanned airborne systems that weigh 9 ounces or more, it should be free and easy to register online, and one registration number could be used on multiple drones operated by the same person.
Here are more of the details from the report:
Drone operators would be required to enter their name and street address into a Web-based or app-based registry, but other contact details – such as email and phone number – would be optional. The system would be powered by an API that multiple websites can feed into. That means manufacturers could set up their own registration sites.
New drone owners wouldn’t be required to register at the point of sale. That’s because it wouldn’t be illegal to own an unregistered drone. It’d only be illegal tooperate a registered drone outdoors. (Indoor drone flying would be unregulated.)
In return for signing up, operators would get a certificate of registration that they’d have to carry with them (in printed or electronic form) whenever they’re flying their drone.
The head of the Federal Aviation Administration says the interim rules for registering recreational drones are likely to be issued next month, just in time for the holiday season.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta’s update on the registration process, provided in a blog post, comes just as a task force is wrapping up its recommendations for setting up the registration system. Huerta says the task force will deliver its report to the FAA on Saturday.
The main recommendations have already come to light, thanks to leaks from the task force.
Should commercial operators be able to fly their drones beyond their line of sight? The question is a big deal for Amazon as well as Walmart, Google and other companies that want to use robotic air vehicles to deliver goods to consumers – but the Federal Aviation Administration needs convincing.
Now the FAA is trying to nail down an answer, thanks to a series of field tests known as Project Pathfinder.
Project Pathfinder is actually a quartet of test programs, aimed at determining the safety of extended drone operations in four scenarios.
Recreational drones as small as 9 ounces will have to be registered, but users should be able to go through the process online, with no fees, and the same registration number can be used for multiple drones: Those are among the reported recommendations emerging from last week’s meeting of a task force charged with proposing a registration system by Nov. 20.
The task force, which includes representatives from Amazon, Walmart, Alphabet(Google’s parent company) and other industry types as well as hobbyists, met in Washington under the auspices of the Federal Aviation Administration. It hasn’t yet issued any formal findings, but reports from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal provide a consistent account of what was decided.
The head of the Federal Aviation Administration told the members of a policy task force to “think big, and think outside the box” as they met today for the first time to discuss a system for registering recreational drones.
This week’s three-day meeting in Washington comes against the backdrop of heightened capability, heightened expectations and heightened concerns about remote-controlled and robotic aerial vehicles.
Task force co-chair David Vos – who handles Project Wing for Google’s holding company, Alphabet – told attendees at an air traffic control convention on Monday that his venture could start using drones for commercial deliveries in 2017. Amazon and Walmart are working on similar systems.