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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: US opens 'drone zones' for a year of pioneer testing From the farm to firefighting, drones will soon fly into everyday life in the US – the Federal Aviation Administration has six proving grounds paving the way IN MAY, a drone flew out over one of the largest wildfires in US history. A big chunk of Alaska south of Anchorage was burning, but the state forestry department thought the situation was under control when they asked Marty Rogers to monitor the blaze from the air as it ebbed. It was supposed to be a simple test flight. "The next day all hell broke loose," says Rogers. While the team was en route, a storm whipped the blaze into a fury. "We had very high winds. Manned aviation was shut down. They cleared firefighters out, but we could fly." Rogers directs drone research at the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in Fairbanks. His crew flew their machine through the night as firefighters on the ground beat back the flare-up. "We looked for hotspots from the air using an infrared camera," Rogers says. "We mapped them and fed them back to the planning software for the fire crews on the ground." Stories like this are rare in the US, where laws for the civilian use of drones have yet to be worked out. But the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been charged by Congress with issuing sweeping rules by September 2015. With little time to lose, the agency has sanctioned six areas around the country as experimental sites. As well as Alaska, proving grounds in New York state, North Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Nevada are running projects that will shape the future of drones in the US. The FAA is watching closely, as its regulations will have a profound impact on everything from fighting fires to the flow of goods around the country. Agriculture is a major research focus. Mike Stanyard at Cornell University in Ithaca is using the FAA's site in rural New York to test an autonomous plane (pictured) designed to help farmers track their crops and animals. Built by Precision Hawk of Indianapolis, the craft's thermal camera is meant to find outbreaks of insects and crop disease, which show up as hotspots when stressed plants lose their ability to regulate heat. "Our hope is that we can spot outbreaks sooner and the farmer could go to that area of the field to fix it," says Bill Verbeten, who is working with Stanyard on the project. The drone's cameras can also save farmers some time by totting up their plants for them. Consulting firms do this count for farmers already to ensure they are maximising their yields. But it's mind-numbing work. "You spend a month counting plants day after day," says Verbeten. "We hope to do that from the air." Verbeten has 12 farms across New York state lined up for drone services. "Each of those farms is hoping to get 500 to 600 acres approved by the FAA by next growing season," Verbeten says. "We're really excited." Before the drone laws are established next year, the FAA plans to issue a preliminary set of rules governing craft lighter than 24 kilograms in November. This will help clarify the current regulations, under which the FAA requires approval for each and every commercial drone flight – an onerous process that prevents the industry from growing. Drones may be used recreationally, but only if they stay below 122 metres, at least 4.8 kilometres from an airport and away from populated areas. But whether the skies will be darkened with autonomous fliers remains to be seen. Google is working on a drone-based delivery service called Wing, and in June, Amazon wrote to the FAA requesting special permission to expand testing of its drones. In the letter, Amazon stated that its drones were already capable of carrying 87 per cent of the items Amazon sells, and promised that its Prime Air service would allow packages to be delivered within 30 minutes of ordering. Tony Basile of NUAIR Alliance, a research consortium that runs the FAA's New York site, says futuristic drone-delivery campaigns proposed by Amazon and Google are looking plausible. "It's going to be a reality, it's just a question of the time frame," he says. He believes both Amazon and Google will be ready to move on their flying commerce projects as soon as they know what the rules are. Back in Alaska, the FAA test site is running other, more niche projects. In a training scenario with law enforcers in Fairbanks, Rogers's drone circled a building that contained an active gunman and relayed info to an incoming SWAT team. His team has also flown drones over the Arctic Ocean to track bowhead whale populations with a view to keeping the oil industry out of their way. Such work has already come in handy for the FAA, demonstrating exactly what the agency hopes to learn by running these test centres. Last week, Rogers's team inadvertently crashed a drone into the Arctic Ocean, and when they retrieved it, they found an unexpected problem. "We crashed the aircraft 22 miles out to sea. When it went down, the computer showed 2 hours of fuel remaining," he says. But when they found it, the tank was virtually empty. "We have no idea why the computer did that," says Rogers, "but this kind of thing is important to the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, and this is how you figure this stuff out – you'll never figure that out in the lab." This is the ultimate goal for all the test sites; to work out technical glitches and help the FAA write the rules for a brand new industry, by running the real-world drone missions of the future. "Most people involved are calling it the new frontier in aviation, and it really is," says Basile. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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