Initiatives for Safely Operating Multiple Drones
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Last week the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy hosted the first-ever Workshop on Drones and the Future of Aviation, which gathered experts and researchers from across industry, academia, and government for a discussion on different topic areas related to policy, research and development, and technology in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) applications and airspace integration.
Most of the measures announced were partnerships and grants to conduct further research, especially for safety purposes to avoid air collisions.
For example, the National Science Foundation will receive $35 million over five years to research how drones might be useful for utilities inspections, disaster management and agricultural monitoring; New York state acquired $5 million to develop a drone traffic management system.
According to Drone Business Center, the workshop outlined some interesting use cases for drone technology that the Federal government is leading the way on, as well as an aggressive agenda for boosting the profile of drones in the U.S. economy:
- Safely operating multiple drones – this is going to become a critical factor for commercialization. Potential uses for multiple drones include search-and-rescue operations, delivery, or inspections of large structures, such as bridges. Current tests have successfully managed 100 drones through a single operator console. Work is underway to be able to scale that to potentially 1,000 or more drones, according to Intel Corp.
- Regulation – significant regulatory challenges still remain to integrating drones into the national airspace system, including privacy, spectrum usage, safety, and scalability.
- Uses by Dept. of Interior – Drones have become a critical tool for the Department of Interior. Drones are used for various missions of fire suppression, mine inspections, oil spill response, and critical infrastructure monitoring.
