Los Angeles Sheriff's UAV Runs Headfirst Into the FAA

[Eugen Leitl]

http://lemonodor.com/archives/001405.html

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Dept. has been working for several years with a
defense contractor, Ocatron, to develop a specialized UAV for police work.
Last week they gave reporters a demo.

    The stealth quality of the SkySeer is a big advantage, according to
police.

    b
The plane is virtually silent and invisible,b
 said Heal. b
It will
give us a vertical perspective that we have never had.b


    The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department operates a fleet of 18 helicopters,
priced between three and five million dollars each. The SkySeer will cost
between 25,000 and 30,000 dollars.

    b
We never have enough helicopters,b
 said Heal. The police helicopters
are in near-constant use, and the SkySeer would alleviate some of this
pressure.

    Unmanned surveillance crafts may become the norm in urban policing, says
Heal.

I think he's completely correct and UAVs will probably become standard, even
ubiquitous pieces of equipment for police. Especially as the industry picks up
and prices fall way below the $20-30K estimate for the SkySeer. The only
possible obstacle seems to be a regulatory one, and I don't mean any kind of
protection of privacy.

It turns out that the FAA is upset with the Sheriff's dept. for not getting
clearance for the flight, even though it was just a demonstration for
reporters.

    b
I wouldn't want to term us as peeved, but we were definitely
surprised,b
 FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. Sheriff's officials were told
"that we were more than willing to sit down and talk about a certificate b
but that was before their first flight.b


    The FAA is now investigating Friday's demonstration to determine whether
the Sheriff's Department should face disciplinary action.

    b
A private citizen can go to the store and buy one of those model
airplanes and fly them around. But because we're doing it as a public service,
we have to deal with the FAA?b
 said Sheriff's Cmdr. Sid Heal. Once they
b
take a deep breath and realize there was no malice intended, it will get
back on track.b


>From what I understand, it's true that if a hobbyist flies a drone (and lots
of people are already flying homebrew drones) below 500', the FAA generally
doesn't care. But the hobbyists have their own regulatory worriesbthe
Academy of Model Aeronautics has its own rules for members, and they're very
worried about the FAA's reaction to widespread hobbyist UAVs. Therefore the
AMA prohibits models with autonomous navigation, and requires operators of
remotely piloted vehicles to b
maintain un-enhanced visual contact with the
aircraft throughout the entire flight.b


>From an article about a possible new FAA classification scheme for UAVs:

    The new classifications would also include a category being referred to as
b
lightly restrictedb
 to cover aircraft currently restricted to flight
within visual sight as the primary basis of risk mitigation. This category
includes radio-controlled model aircraft, particularly model helicopters
adapted for commercial use in aerial photography; small blimps used for
advertising; and agricultural UAVs.

    The b
lightly restrictedb
 classification represents systems that b
are
giving us a good deal of problems right now and we are really wrestling, on a
daily basis, with this particular groupb
, says Steve Swartz, from the
FAAbs recently established unmanned aircraft programme office.

I think even the regulatory issues involved in the integration of autonomous
vehicles into our society are completely fascinating.

--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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