Commercial use of drones for deliveries and services is expected to clear a major hurdle in the United States as early as this week, with new requirements for most devices to transmit a radio beacon with digital license plate to help ensure safety and prevent misuse.
All drones except the smallest ones will have to transmit a radio signal that identifies them and their location under a new one. Federal Aviation Administration rules, according to a summary of the action reviewed by Bloomberg News.
The new regulations, which will take effect 30 months after the standard becomes final, are an important basis needed before drone and other trade deliveries can take place. They mark the most significant regulatory expansion in drone capabilities since the devices first hit civilian markets a decade ago.
The rules will be “an essential element in enabling more complex drone operations” safely, according to the agency.
The actions break a regulatory hurdle that had slowed the growth of drone technology in the United States. The need for an identification issue addresses concerns from federal police and national security agencies that increasingly trained flying machines will be used for crime and terrorism.
A few years ago, the FAA had established the possibility of extending drone flights over crowds in some cases and allowing them routinely at night, but other agencies would not allow it to advance the rules until it addressed growing concerns about misuse of devices. . It is also expected that separate rules will be available for operating on crowds.
The FAA has not commented on its plans for the new regulation. The White House Management and Budget Office concluded its review of the regulations on Wednesday, according to its report website.
It will still be years before swarms of drones operated by companies like Prime Air from Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Root Inc. Ala i United Parcel Service Inc. springs up the neighborhoods that leave packages. But the new rules provide an important platform for the industry to move towards these goals.
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A robust drone tracking system is needed to ensure that the public accepts these new businesses, UPS Flight Forward said in comments on the proposal earlier this year. “If illegal and unsafe operators cannot be identified and stopped, confidence in the system will be eroded and voluntary compliance will be undermined,” the company wrote.
The new regulation will require drones weighing more than 0.25 kilos to spread their identity on a low-power radio frequency, such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. This way, police or other authorities can control nearby drones.
Civilian drones sold in the U.S. must be equipped with this technology from 18 months after the completion of the rules, according to the summary. Operators are not allowed to take off without a working identification beacon.
The regulations also allow existing drones to adapt to this system.
The standard does not require devices to emit a signal that can be transmitted via mobile phone systems to a national monitoring network, a measure that was originally included in a proposal. presented last year.
Wing, Amazon, and others who wanted to set up delivery companies had urged the FAA to allow a national Internet-based network to track devices.
Fans who want the devices can request exemptions that allow them to operate without an identification beacon, as long as they go in restricted areas approved by the FAA. Flying clubs like the The aeronautical model academy and educational institutions may apply for these exemptions.
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The FAA, in response to requests from recreational users and industry groups, adds privacy restrictions that will make it impossible for the public to identify the operator of a drone using the identification beacon.
The FAA will keep this information confidential, he said in the summary, providing it to law enforcement and national security agencies upon request. This is an exit from traditional aviation, where FAA flight tracking data is usually public.
The new rules are an attempt to fix the explosion of drone use. The FAA had registered nearly one million recreational drone users and owned 1.3 million of the devices since last year. According to his data, an additional 385,000 commercial drones had been registered with the agency.
At the same time, there has been an increase of reports of aircraft flying dangerously close to traditional airplanes and even helicopters Air Force One – and cases where they are used for drug smuggling or terrorist attacks in other nations. He The National Transportation Safety Board has concluded that drones were involved in several American air collisions.
Because the regulations were considered useful to the industry, the approximate concept had broad support. However, the FAA the proposed tag tags issued a year ago attracted more than 53,000 public comments as various components clashed over how it should be implemented.
Traditional fans who have been flying airplane models for decades, some of whom lack the electronics to support a beacon, said by thousands that they were worried the rules would be too restrictive.
Newer recreational users flying small helicopters said they were worried about equipping their planes or adding new expensive requirements. Many also raised privacy concerns about how tracking information could be used.