Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have long been used over Iraq and Afghanistan. Now local police and Homeland Security want to use them in the U.S. for aerial surveillance. This raises two interesting issues: privacy and safety. The privacy one is familiar to Politech readers. If you have a fleet of UAVs overhead on a clear day, they could track when your car leaves your driveway, where you go, who you visit, how long you stay, how fast you drive, and add all that data to a massive information store that could be available to any Fed for the asking. (Networked terrestrial cameras and facecams raise essentially the same issue.) The safety issue involves sharing airspace with pilots carrying passengers. News coverage: http://news.com.com/Drone+aircraft+may+prowl+U.S.+skies/2100-11746_3-6055658. html Photos of UAVs: http://news.com.com/2300-11397_3-6055507.html The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association's writeup of a North Carolina county's use of an UAV for monitoring its citizens: http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2006/060215uav.html Summary of a House hearing on this today is below. -Declan --- http://www.house.gov/transportation/aviation/03-29-06/03-29-06memo.html PURPOSE The purpose of this hearing is to discuss the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Unmanned Aerial Systems in the National Airspace System (NAS) and the authority of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide safety oversight and air traffic control over these systems in the NAS. BACKGROUND According to the Congressional Research Service, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been referred to in many ways: remotely piloted vehicle, drone, robot plane, and pilotless aircraft are a few such names. UAVs, which may have a wingspan as large as a Boeing 737 or be as small as a radio-controlled model airplane, are defined by the Department of Defense (DOD) as powered, aerial vehicles that * do not carry a human operator, * use aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, * can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, * can be expendable or recoverable, and * can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload. There are two different types of UAVs: drones and remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs). Both drones and RPVs are pilotless, but drones are programmed for autonomous flight. RPVs are actively flown b remotely b by a ground control operator. While historically UASs have been used primarily by the DOD in military settings outside of U.S. borders to enhance warfighting capabilities, there is growing demand to operate UAVs in the integrated NAS. In fact, Congress has repeatedly called for and funded programs to study and eventually mandate the use of UAVs in support of homeland security missions and for other purposes. Federal agencies, such as the Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP), the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and State and Local law enforcement agencies are interested in utilizing UAVs in the NAS. Public uses include border security, port security, surveillance, drug interdiction, search and rescue, fire fighting, and other law enforcement and homeland security initiatives. Some of these activities are taking place today; for instance, the CBP conducts UAV surveillance operations along the Nationbs southern border; a NASA-sponsored program has produced civilian UAVs to monitor pollution and measure ozone levels; and the Department of Energy is looking at UAVs outfitted with radiation sensors to detect potential nuclear reactor accidents. UAVs are also an emerging segment of the commercial aviation industry and commercial entities would like to be able to operate UAVs in the NAS. There are many possible commercial uses of UAVs. In fact, the FAA acknowledges that manufacturers and operators are conducting research on, or are designing, aircraft that could fill niche markets unimagined just a decade ago. According to the FAA, some of the research and development activities the commercial aviation industry already performs include supporting law enforcement, homeland security, firefighting, weather prediction and tracking activities. ROLE OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION The FAA has sole authority over the safe and efficient use of the NAS. The FAA is responsible for overseeing the safety of the civil airspace, including operations by the military, government, private pilots and commercial entities. To this end, the FAA must take appropriate actions to ensure the safety of the public, which includes the flying public, as well as people and property on the ground. Public Uses of the Civil Airspace - Certificate of Waiver or Authorization According to the FAA, when the military or a government agency wants to fly a UAV in civil airspace (outside of Special Use Airspace or Military Operation Areas which are b no flyb areas and therefore not integrated with other operators), the FAA examines the request and issues a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA), generally based on the following principles: * The COA authorizes an operator to use defined airspace for a specified time (up to one year, in some cases) and includes special provisions unique to each operation. For instance, a COA may include a requirement to operate only under Visual Flight Rules (VFR). * Most, if not all, COAs require coordination with an appropriate air traffic control facility and require the UAV to have a transponder able to operate in standard air traffic control mode with automatic altitude reporting. * To make sure the UAV will not interfere with other aircraft, a ground observer or an accompanying b chaseb aircraft must maintain visual contact with the UAV. The COA process has made possible research and development efforts and provided a means to introduce UAVs into the air traffic system. This process has aided the FAA, other government agencies, and the UAV manufacturers in identifying potential safety issues. Identified issues, such as the ability to b detect, see and avoidb other traffic, need to be addressed through further technological advancements and additional research and development efforts. Currently, the COA process is not available to commercial entities. Public Uses of the Civil Airspace b Temporary Flight Restrictions In order to address a request by the CBP to conduct UAV operations along the southern border, the FAA established a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and New Mexico. The approximately 300 nm-long, 17-nm wide in most places, corridor is to prevent U.S. Customs and Border Patrol UAV aircraft from colliding with other civilian aircraft. The TFR is in effect from 12,000 to 14,000 feet and is active from 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. daily. The TFR is scheduled to be in effect until December 31, 2006, and may be renewed next year. Commercial Uses of the Civil Airspace To address the increasing needs of the civil market and the desire by civilian operators to fly UAVs in the NAS, the FAA has set up a UAV office and is developing new policies, procedures and approval processes. The FAA anticipates having draft UAV guidance in two years. The approach is to have the appropriate level of oversight without being overly restrictive in the early stages. More immediately, the FAA is reviewing certification requests from several UAV manufacturers. The first airworthiness certificates in the b Experimentalb category (for research and development, crew training, or market survey) were issued in 2005. RELATED ISSUES There are a number of other issues facing the FAA related to the emerging commercial UAV industry, including: Safety oversight: The FAA has identified two primary UAV safety issues that must be addressed for them to operate safely in the integrated civil airspace. * The need for proven UAV command and control redundancies should there be a disruption in communication or should the operator lose contact with the vehicle; and * The need for reliable b detect and avoidb capability so that UAVs can sense and avoid other aircraft. Short term: The use of COAs, experimental certificates and TFRs are intended to be temporary fixes. As it stands today, the lack of UAV standards, operational procedures and regulations is problematic. The demand for UAV operations is growing, and the short-term safety processes put in place, while allowing the FAA to gather important operational data, are not feasible in the long-term. Permission to fly UAVs in the NAS typically takes 60-90 days and permission is often accompanied by operational restrictions. In addition, FAA regions are not always interpreting the existing regulations the same way, leading to inconsistent regulation and enforcement. The FAA, other government agencies, UAV manufacturers, and commercial aviation stakeholders must continue to look for innovative solutions to address the safety issues related to UAVs in the NAS. Long term: The FAA has asked RTCA, Inc., a private, not-for-profit corporation that develops consensus-based recommendations for the agency on technical issues, to help develop UAV standards. RTCA will answer two key questions: How will UAVs handle command and control, and how will they detect and avoid other aircraft? Both of these questions are dependent upon the development of technology and operational procedures. In the long term, it must be demonstrated to the FAA that UAVs can operate at the equivalent level of safety as a manned aircraft. This process will take time. All the stakeholders, the FAA, DOD, DHS, other Government agencies, the NAS users, and the UAV industry must work together to achieve this safety goal. Research and Development Programs and ACCESS 5: Until recently, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sponsored a government-industry project called ACCESS 5. The project brought together NASA, the FAA, the DOD, the DHS and the UAV National Industry Team (UNITE) to integrate UAVs or Remotely Operated Aircraft (ROA) into the national civil airspace via a four-step process. The first two steps of that process were funded by NASA in the High-Altitude, Long-Endurance Remotely Operated Aircraft in the National Airspace System (HALE ROA in the NAS) project. The HALE ROA in the NAS project was established in 2004 to develop policies, procedures and technical standards to enable remotely or autonomously operated aircraft to fly reliably and routinely in civil airspace with an equivalent level of safety as planes flown by on-board pilots. The last two steps in Access 5 were not part of NASA's HALE ROA in the NAS project, and funding them was left dependent upon the success achieved in the first two steps. The HALE ROA in the NAS project was funded primarily by NASA's Aeronautics Mission Directorate, with a planned budget for steps one and two of about $103 million through fiscal year 2009, or about 75 percent of the project's estimated cost over that five-year period. Industry members of the Access 5 project were contributing funding, with roughly 75 percent of the project's funding from NASA and 25 percent from industry. Unfortunately for UAV research and development efforts, NASA has recently announced a comprehensive restructuring of its research programs. As such, Access 5 has been defunded and important UAV research and development work has stopped. To date, no other agency or entity has taken on, or agreed to, fund the project. International cooperation: The use of UAVs in the civil airspace is a global issue. The FAA and other Government agencies continue to work closely with their international counterparts to harmonize standards, policies, procedures, and regulatory requirements. Recreational Model Aircraft Appropriate oversight of model aircraft operations must be considered as the FAA and interested parties develop standards and regulations for the use of UAVs in the NAS. The term b model aircraftb is defined by the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) as a non-human-carrying device capable of sustained flight in the atmosphere, not exceeding the limitations established in the Official AMA National Model Aircraft Safety Code, exclusively for recreation, sport, and/or competition activities. The AMA has been in existence since 1936, and is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote the development of model aviation as a recognized sport and worthwhile recreation activity. The AMA coordinates with the FAA and self-polices the operation of model aircraft in AMA sanctioned events. Some of the operational requirements for AMA sanctioned activities include: * A maximum takeoff weight of a model aircraft, including fuel, is 55 pounds, except for those flown under the AMA Experimental Aircraft Rules; * Operations shall not take place higher than approximately 400 feet above ground level, when within three (3) miles of an airport without notifying the airport operator; * Yielding the right-of-way and avoiding flying in the proximity of full-scale aircraft and utilizing a spotter when appropriate; * Operators of radio control model aircraft shall control the aircraft from the ground and maintain un-enhanced visual contact with the aircraft throughout the entire flight; and * No model aircraft shall be equipped with devices that would allow for autonomous flight. The AMAbs position is that model aircraft should not be included in the standards and regulations for UAVs, and that in establishing the definition of UAV, the focus should be on the purpose of the vehicle operation as opposed to the size or ability of the vehicle. _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]