Keeping an Eye on Crowded Skies

drones, amateur pilot, model plane, ATC, air traffic control, FAA, remote control

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
As consumer drones become more affordable and take to the skies,
some manufacturers are implementing systems to avoid future catastrophe. I'm
Jonathan Strickland, and this is tech stuff daily. In many
parts of the world, you can buy a drone up
to a certain weight and operate it without any need

(00:24):
for a license or other legal documents. You might be
expected to follow certain rules, such as keeping your drone
away from the airspace around airports, but for the most part,
there aren't that many rules and restrictions to navigate around.
That's exactly what the drone manufacturers want, and in an
effort to preserve the status quo, some of them are
coming up with air traffic systems. In the United States,

(00:47):
the Federal Aviation Administration or f a A has a
few requirements for drone pilots. If you plan to operate
your drone commercially, for example, on a professional film or
video shoot, you'll need to apply for a remote pilot license.
This requires taking an aeronautical knowledge test. Pilots have to
be at least sixteen years old and go through a

(01:07):
vetting process with the Transportation Safety Administration or t s A.
Once registered, commercial pilots have some further rules to follow.
They must keep their vehicles within line of sight at
all times. They have an altitude ceiling limit of four
hundred feet, and the drones have a speed limit of
one hundred miles per hour. They must fly the drones
during the day, and pilots have to avoid flying drones

(01:30):
over crowds of people, and they're not allowed to control
them from a moving vehicle. Recreational pilots have fewer requirements.
You still have to register your drone with the f
a A if the drone weighs more than point five
five pounds. Failure to do so could result in a
fine if your drone is ever involved in an accident.
There's also an age requirement for recreational pilots, but that's
down to thirteen years old. You're not allowed to fly

(01:52):
within five miles of an airport or near emergency responders.
Generally speaking, you just need to follow the same basic
guidelines at the pilot of a remote controlled airplane would
adhere to. One of the companies trying to make sure
regulations don't get more restrictive is d j I, a
drone company with headquarters in China. The company hopes to
stay out ahead of regulatory agencies like the f a

(02:16):
A in the United States or the Civil Aviation Authority
in the UK. This is similar to how the video
games industry voluntarily assigns ratings to video games to indicate
how old a players should be to experience those games.
It's all in an effort to self regulate before some
other entity comes in and starts giving orders. So what
are the details behind dj ees strategy. First, the drones

(02:39):
aren't going to communicate with existing air traffic control systems.
They will communicate over Wi Fi frequencies, specifically the two
point four and five point eight Gigga Hurts WiFi bands.
The drones will broadcast information such as their position, velocity,
and altitude, as well as the make and model of
the drone. The system, dubbed arrow Space, will allow pilots

(03:01):
to include additional information if required by their respective countries.
The information could include contact information for the pilot or
the registration number for the drone if its size and
operation requires such a number. A ground station will be
able to detect, track, and identify drones within a five
kilometer radius. These stations can be in fixed locations such

(03:23):
as the outskirts of airports, or they can be installed
inside vans and turned into mobile air traffic systems. The
WiFi signals are on an entirely different frequency from those
used by air traffic control. According to d j I,
this decision was necessary. If a TC picked up all
the drones in an area, the signals might make it
more challenging to identify and assist incoming aircraft. It becomes

(03:47):
a problem of separating the signal from the noise. Because
d j I drones already have WiFi capabilities, there's no
need to upgrade older models with physical alterations. The system
can be rolled out as a software patch. D j
I drone owners just need to update their drones system
to incorporate the new features. As the skies fill up

(04:07):
with more drones, from those operated by hobbyists to commercial
unmanned aerial vehicles, delivering packages to your front door, systems
like the one d j I is implementing will become
more important. It's possible that governments may step in at
some point if things get even more hectic. For the
time being, these industry initiated systems may do the trick nicely.

(04:27):
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