The evolution of drone flight safety will make a big leap in January 2020.
DJI is taking the lead by rolling out its Elevating Safety program, which includes having ADS-B on board all its new drones at the beginning of next year.
Why is this important to general aviation pilots?
The simple answer is that more and more unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are filling the skies as the drone industry continues to explode. That explosive growth is due not just to recreational drone pilots, but professionals in a variety of industries, including agriculture, inspection, filmmaking, search and rescue, real estate, and many more who are discovering what unmanned aircraft can do for them.
For example, we see in the news almost daily about new uses for drones, including package delivery, transport of medical supplies, and other advanced uses.
With these new uses for drones, we are likely to see larger unmanned aircraft in the skies, not just the tiny two-pound camera drones that are whirring about now.
Along with this explosive growth comes the obvious need to manage air traffic better.
Ask any manned aircraft pilot about drones and they will usually point out the concerns of a potential accident between their plane and a drone.
Employing ADS-B is a major step in giving drone operators better situational awareness regarding the traffic in their flight area.
How Will This Work?
The DJI drones will be equipped with Airsense, which provides ADS-B In. That means drone operators will only have the ability to receive transmissions from other aircraft. It does not include ADS-B Out, which transmits an aircraft’s location.
ADS-B In alerts the person operating the drone of nearby aircraft.
This realtime awareness uses a combination of satellite and radio signals to identify the locations of other aircraft and alert the drone operator quickly. This situational awareness will be a great tool in helping the drone operator understand and respond to other traffic in their flight area.
Because it uses ADS-B In, the alerts won’t clog up congested airwaves with additional transmissions.
Elevating Safety
While ADS-B is a major part of the drone industry’s safety plans, it is not the only thing involved.
It seems everyone in the drone industry is applying different approaches and policies toward making flight operations safer for both manned and unmanned flying.
The FAA, for example, has made recent changes and proposals for recreational operators, as well as recurrence certification processes for Part 107 pilots.
DJI’s Elevating Safety program addresses an additional nine key elements centered around improving standards for unmanned aircraft integration into the skies. Those elements include:
- DJI will develop a new automatic warning for drone pilots flying at extended distances;
- DJI will establish an internal Safety Standards Group to meet regulatory and customer expectations;
- Aviation industry groups must develop standards for reporting drone incidents;
- All drone manufacturers should install geofencing and remote identification;
- Governments must require remote identification;
- Governments must require a user-friendly knowledge test for new drone pilots;
- Governments must clearly designate sensitive restriction areas;
- Local authorities must be allowed to respond to drone threats that are clear and serious; and
- Governments must increase enforcement of laws against unsafe drone operation.
In a white paper describing the safety efforts, company officials say: “DJI is charting a path for ensuring drones remain a safe addition to the airspace.”
That safety path is critical as the skies become more crowded.
The fact is, drones are not going away.
There’s no doubt that we will reach a point some day where drone flights are common place. That’s why it’s crucial that we take the time now to establish a solid, recognized set of rules and technologies to maximize safe operations — and the drone manufacturers know this.
Establishing better communication protocols benefit all pilots, manned and unmanned. The attention to advancing these technologies is a welcome step forward.
The problem is ADS-B is an open, unencrypted, unauthenticated, open air transmission. You can receive ADS-B IN using any SDR USB dongle for less than $10 and some open source SW libraries. ADS-B OUT on the other hand can be spoofed to report phantom aircraft type, registration, location, altitude, direction, speed, etc. ADS-B OUT requires ALL aircraft to have a certified pilot and a flight plan on file with the FAA. Not to mention the cost of ADS-B OUT is expensive at the moment. I see this headed to three classes of drones.
1. Under 250 grams (0.55 lbs) for the hobbyist/toy market. No ADS-B, but with hard coded altitude/distance limits, and GPS geofence database.
2. Between 0.55 to 55 lbs which all require registration and a drone license for commercial use. ADS-B IN. Altitude/distance/geofence can only be bypassed if FAA registration and drone license is validated.
3. Over 55 lbs. ADS-B IN/OUT, most stringent category and requires a reqular pilots license and a flight plan on file.
Drone operators want to leverage ADS-B to use the national air space, but this completely ignores the many failings of ADS-B, and all the aircraft that are not equipped, as well as the numerous non-electric aircraft. This is a solution only if all are equpped and ADS-B actually worked the majority of the time. So far, I’ve found neither to be the case.
The FAA was remiss in not requiring ADS-B out on all drones. And any drone found flying above 1000 feet without ADS-B out should have gotten the operator into a steep fine and possible jail situation. Drones today are death waiting to happen. Firefighting has to be suspended when someone flys a drone into a firefighting area allowing the fire to rage. No one is safe in the skies while drones are simply allowed to fly unseen and undetected. The FAAs silly program of ‘registering drone operators is an honor system and completely irresponsible as it does not solve the problem at all.
Birds today are death waiting to happen.
Cars today are death waiting to happen.
Bicycles today are death waiting to happen.
Motorcycles today are death waiting to happen.
See you can apply that same fallacious logic to anything. Not to mention sUAS aren’t supposed to be above 400′ AGL not even 1000′. Only areal firefighting operations get suspended if a drone is “Spotted”, which we know is BS 90% of the time.
As a manned aviator AND drone pilot I can say without a doubt that this is BS. Yes 100% there are A-Holes out there flying drones like jack asses, but you know what? There are plenty of manned aviators out there flying 2000Lbs + airplanes like jack asses too. I’ve never once heard of a drone running out of fuel, causing it to crash, killing everyone on board. I have heard of that happening in manned aviation thousands of times.
The simple fact is drones have not killed a single person (I’ll give the “yet”), but manned aviation has an average of 1 death almost every single day. When manned aviation becomes even remotely close to as safe as drones, then you can start freaking out.
Drones with ADS B-in are perfectly equipped to put themselves directly into the path of oncoming aircraft, something that’s difficult to do at present. It’s not too far removed from offering shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles at Walmart.
You are wrong. The FAA should have REQUIRED this from any drone maker and all drones flying. The sooner all drones have ADS-B out the less chance any of us will have hitting one.
I commented on -IN, not -OUT. The article refers to the former, not the latter.
They still need to have ADS B out.