TECH TALK
ARE DRONE OPERATORS TRYING TO KILL THE EMERGING DRONE MARKET?
BY JOHN PAWLICKI
DRONES HAVE AN IMAGE PROBLEM. WITH EVERY REPORTED INCIDENT WHERE SOME ERRANT DRONE COMES NEAR AN AIRLINER IN FLIGHT, OR ENDANGERS AN UNSUSPECTING PEDESTRIAN, THE OUTCRY AGAINST DRONES CONTINUES TO BUILD. THIS FOLLOWS A WELL-TRODDEN TRAIL THAT MANY OTHER GROUND-BREAKING TECHNOLOGIES HAVE FACED.
There is turmoil and controversy each time a new innovation enters the public sphere. Battles about how radio, television, telephones, automobiles and aircraft were being initially used were driven by the novelty of each as they entered the market. Early car drivers were notorious for scaring horses and running into things. Both the radio and television were lambasted for changing public morals. Telephones impacted social norms of the day. Each of these advancements needed time and new rules in order to be effective and accepted by society at large. In fact, part of the acceptance is simply stopping the early adopters from doing anything they wanted to do at the expense of others. The lack of well-defined rules,
regulations and plain old common sense (since there is nothing really common about good sense) created problems for many early adopters of these inventions and those who might have suffered from the consequences of others’ actions. Legacy competition and public outcry were often able to convince governments to limit the initial use of each of these innovations. It seems that the drone market has fallen into this trap as well — and it has no one to blame but itself (and the FAA, to some degree).
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DOMmagazine.com | may 2016 3.5 DRONE INCIDENTS IN THE
U.S. PER DAY IS NOT GOOD A number of well-publicized incidents have highlighted the seemingly apparent lack of decorum by drone operators. In March 2016 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an updated list of pilot, air traffic controller and citizen reports of possible encounters with unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), aka drones, and it identifies 583 separate incidents between Aug. 22, 2015, and Jan. 31, 2016. Figure 1 (courtesy of Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College) shows an ever- increasing number of incidents. With
an estimated 2.5M drones in the U.S. (unsubstantiated total reported by various sources), and with more than 406,000 registered drone owners (as of mid-March 2016), we can expect for the growth in the trend of incidents to continue. Not all of these reported incidents stand up to scrutiny, and there is pushback from drone user groups on such incidents that are overblown. There is merit to some of these arguments, and the FAA shares some of the blame due to its foot-dragging on defining regulatory policy for many years, creating confusion and a legal vacuum for this new sub-industry.
Incidents per Month 186
133 128 100 84 65 49 32 18 2 5 3 10 26 36 30 29 22 26 108 114 82 67 82
Figure 1: Number of Reported Drone Incidents per the FAA
Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14
May-14 Jun-14
Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14
Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15
May-15 Jun-15
Jul-15 Aug-15 Sep-15 Oct-15 Nov-15 Dec-15
Jan-16
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