UAV News Talk – Drone News, eVTOLs, UAS Policy & Air Mobility

SeaClear aims to clean ocean trash, the Loyal Wingman powers up its engine, a drone crashes into wind-turbine, drone makers see an opportunity in anti-China sentiment, marine animal rescue, photographing the orange landscapes caused by wildfire smoke, and why harassing a police officer with a drone is a bad idea.

There is a lot of trash in the oceans. One estimate puts it at around 26-66 million tons of waste with 94% of that is on the seafloor. The EU-funded SeaClear project wants to clean up the mess. Under this project An unmanned surface vessel acts as a “mothership.” Tethered to it are drones and remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) that will use AI-based algorithms to map, identify, and classify the rubbish. A combined suction-gripper manipulator will collect it.

The Boeing Australia Loyal Wingman aircraft that was rolled out in May 2020 had its first engine run. Also known as the Airpower Teaming System (ATS), the first test flight is expected later in 2020.

Earlier this year, a DJI Phantom 4 crashed into one of the four wind turbines at a sewage treatment facility. The drone was being used to survey the Bristol sewage treatment works in Avonmouth. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch report [PDF] says: “The pilot was using the NATS Drone Assist app1 as part of the flight planning and risk assessment of the flight; however, the app did not mention the wind turbines, so the pilot looked up “windturbine height” on the internet which returned a height of 328 ft.” Except the wind turbine actually has a height of 413 ft above the ground.

According to Power Engineering International, since the Covid-19 pandemic, power companies are turning to drones for inspections. The article describes the recently unveiled DJI Matrice 300 RTK commercial drone platform – a quadcopter with fold-up arms, up to 55 minutes of flight time, and transmission up to 15 km away.

Rightly or wrongly, DJI has taken a hit to their image because of accusations about data transmission to China. Governments responded with bans on Chinese drones but some drone makers are taking advantage of the situation. Last month the Defense Department approved Skydio, Parrot, and three others to supply U.S.-manufactured drones to federal government agencies. DJI announced an internet “kill switch” on more drones that stops data transmission on sensitive flying missions.

Sometimes marine animals become distressed: tangled in a net, tangled in some of that plastic floating around the oceans, or they may be sick. Drones can be an asset because they can assess the situation so that marine biologists (and others) can bring the equipment they need to help the animal. Marine biologist Genni Brookshire (an FAA-certified drone pilot) and her team partnered with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to find the pitch and volume levels that stress marine life the least. They plan to publish their findings in a peer-reviewed journal and to make the information available for free on Ceto Marine Research’s website.

Verge video director Vjeran Pavic took photographs of San Francisco and Sutro Tower just after sunrise using a drone.

An Ontario man received 13 citations for flying a drone in a harassing manner over residential areas. The Class B violations were issued under ORS 837.370 for operating a drone over privately owned premises in a manner that “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly harass or annoy the owner or occupant” of those premises. The man is scheduled for an October 7 court appearance.

Video drone footage of abandoned dinosaur park in Arkansas

Video: Drone Flight Over Abandoned Dinosaur Theme Park

The FAA selected eight companies to help establish the technology requirement framework for drone remote identification, a key enabling technology. One of those companies is Skyward, a Verizon company that develops commercial drone management and airspace intelligence platforms. They acted as a USS (UAS Service Supplier) for the cohort.

This episode we are joined by Skyward president Mariah Scott and product manager Amanda Breese.

Mariah Scott has taken businesses from creation through exit, and built new markets in commercial drones, healthcare, identity services, and media delivery across North America, Europe, and Asia. As the president of Skyward, she helps enterprises realize the potential of drones. She’s built the company through startup to a successful acquisition by Verizon. Skyward software now manages drone programs for Fortune 500 companies as well as drone flight service startups. Skyward is actively developing the global standards needed to enable this new technology.

Amanda Breese is a product manager for Skyward’s web application. She leads frontend development and works closely with design and engineering teams to deliver Skyward software features. Amanda has ten years of experience working in engineering and support roles. 

We discuss the significance of drone remote identification and the private/public partnership model used to create the technology framework. Skyward worked primarily on network-based remote identification but broadcast-based solutions are also part of the framework.

Skyward has recently expanded its Aviation Management Platform to include a new Approval Workflow feature, which allows drone crews to seek approval from managers before deploying to the field. This supports Skyward’s strategy to help companies mitigate risks and liability in their corporate drone operations as they adopt new technology.

Optionally piloted firefighting helicopters, was it a jetpack or a manikin on a drone, the Amazon Prime Air exemption with conditions, Japan Airlines interest in drones, UAS RF spectrum news, and using a drone to deliver a spare part to a drilling platform.

Fighting wildfires is dangerous at night and typically aerial firefighting is suspended. However, optionally piloted aircraft could be a solution. Kaman Corp. is converting its conventionally piloted K-MAX heavy-lift helicopter to be optionally piloted. Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky Aviation company is developing the Matrix aerial firefighting helicopter solution that is intended to make just about any helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft optionally piloted.

Pilots on two airplanes on final approach into Los Angeles International Airport reported seeing someone with a jetpack at 3,000 feet. Was it a jetpack, or was it a manikin strapped to a large electric drone?

The FAA has approved exemption 18602 for the Amazon Prime Air MK27 unmanned aircraft to operate in cargo delivery operations without an airworthiness certificate. The approval allows Amazon to continue operations and development without certification, but with a number of limitations.

The MK27 drones weigh 88 pounds, about the weight of a standard lawn mower. Some people have safety concerns since the Amazon flight manuals the company shares with the FAA are proprietary. We don’t know how Amazon is planning to mitigate risks.

Japan Airlines (JAL) and four other companies will undertake a study to explore the logistics of a drone delivery service by 2022. The drones would deliver pharmaceuticals to hospitals, food to offices and apartments, and provide drone security patrols. Drone project testing is planned for Tokyo Bay and stations around the Metropolitan area. Besides JAL, the other companies are KDDI (the telecommunications operator), East Japan Railways, Weathernews, and Terra Drone Corporation.

In the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, Congress asked the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to submit a report on spectrum allocation for unmanned aircraft. The FCC has submitted that report, which recommends proceeding with rulemaking to enable the use of the 5030-5091 MHz band.

Nordic Unmanned flew a drone carrying a 3D-printed part to the Troll A platform in the North Sea. The part was for the lifeboat system on the platform is operated by Equinor ASA, a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company. The 80 kilometre flight took about one hour at an altitude of about 5000 feet. The drone was a Camcopter S-100 model, manufactured by Schiebel.

Commercial UAV Expo Americas, virtual event, September 15-17, 2020.

Commercial UAV Expo Europe, virtual event, December 1-3, 2020.

Technology developing to counter drone swarms, a blended wing body drone to catch poachers, studying pollinating bees, and Norway’s first UTM system.

Isaac Kaminer, an engineering professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School says “large-scale adversarial swarms” of drones are an “imminent threat.” Instead of trying to shoot down super swarms, Kaminer proposes to use the swarm against itself.

Laws exist to protect endangered species, but organized criminal networks don’t follow laws so the Kashmir World Foundation (KwF) is fighting back with technology. KwF designs, develops, and applies unmanned autonomous systems, including the Eagle Ray blended wing body Eagle Ray anti-poaching drone. See: Eagle Ray UAS Scans for Poachers.

Entomologist Diana Obregon has been studying the effect of pesticides and deforestation on pollinating bees. She used drones to assess the forest around crops, then correlated that to pesticide residues in the crop and the diversity and abundance of bees visiting the crop.

Norwegen airport operator Avinor is testing an unmanned traffic management (UTM) system at two airports. The UTM system provides an operational overview of the airspace and allows two-way communication between air traffic control and drone operators. Ultimately, the system is planned for 18 towers in Norway. Avinor Air Navigation Services (ANS) is working with Frequentis and Altitude Angel to implement the UTM system.

Kid amazes Dad with his drone flying skills

Video: Kid amazes Dad with his drone flying skills

AeroDefense founding CEO Linda Ziemba explains the AirWarden™ system for drone detection as well as the complex legal hurdles that must be considered.

Linda Ziemba is the founding CEO of AeroDefense. The company’s AirWarden™ system detects and locates both drones and pilots simultaneously. This provides actionable intelligence for security teams to respond to drone threats.

Linda explains the legality of drone detection and mitigation systems, which revolves around three main factors:

First, since small UAS are categorized as aircraft, drones have the same protections as transport airplanes. Simply put, you can not take a drone down if you don’t like what it is doing.

Second, 47 U.S. Code § 333 (Willful or Malicious Interference) states that “No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government.”

And finally, privacy and wiretapping laws mean you cannot intercept and open communications. 

Penalties for infractions include large fines and prison time.

AeroDefence responded to these realities by pivoting from drone detection and mitigation to just drone detection. Sensors detect the characteristics of RF transmissions and match those to a database of drone RF profiles based on the chipsets they use.

Wide-Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) for a Navy drone, deliberately hitting an airplane with a drone, drone delivery service in Alabama, quadcopter disrupts MLB game, UAS pilot program for Virginia, the first drone to make a commercial delivery goes to the Smithsonian, and a drone finds a missing whale.

The Boeing Insitu R1-21A Blackjack is a Navy and Marine Corps small tactical unmanned air system (STUAS) that can provide ISR coverage day or night. The Blackjack now has a new wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) sensor from Logos Technologies that can simultaneously monitor 5 square miles.

A series of collisions were staged between an Antonov AN-2 biplane and some DJI Phantoms. These were recorded in slow-motion video which documents the resulting damage to the Antonov and the destruction of the Phantoms.

Video: First drone vs Plane crash in slow motion

Deuce Drone is testing drone delivery in Mobile, Alabama. They’ve partnered with the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant and Rouses food market, hoping to get food to deliveries in 10-15 minutes from order. Deuce Drone says they “will design and build your company’s drone delivery system, leveraging your existing infrastructure. Last-mile delivery is key. Drones are the solution.”

A drone appeared over center field during a major league baseball game in Minneapolis. The Twins were ahead of the Pirates by three runs when the quadcopter was spotted. Umpires cleared the field while some of the pitchers tried to hit the drone. After about 5 minutes, the drone disappeared and the game resumed.

The Virginia Department of Aviation (DOAV) and the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) have launched the Virginia Flight Information Exchange pilot program. VA-FIX is a platform for state and local governments to share UAS advisory information with stakeholders, including UAS Service Suppliers (USS), UAS operators, and the public. It is being called the first state-sponsored authoritative Supplemental Data Service Provider (SDSP) to exist in the FAA’s UAS Traffic Management (UTM). For more information on the Virginia Flight Information Exchange, visit the Virginia Department of Aviation website.

The first commercial drone delivery to a home in the United States was made on October 19, 2019. Wing’s drone A1229 delivered a purple vest ordered by an 81-year-old retiree in Virginia. Now A1229 has a new home, at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Roger Connor, curator of vertical flight for the National Air and Space Museum said, “Ten years ago I had no rational reason to expect drone technology to have advanced to where it is now, and Wing is really the next phase of that. Not only is Wing’s aircraft actually making residential deliveries, but they’re figuring out how the technology fits in with the local economy and society.”

Last July, an endangered white whale was spotted swimming up a river in Norway from the sea. Whales are easily trapped in a river like this with sandbanks and changing river depth. A wildlife rescue operation was initiated, but the whale was lost from sight. The Norwegian People’s AID Midt-Troms Search & Rescue Unit was contacted to help locate the whale, which they did in 10 minutes using Atlas Dynamics drone technology.

Airfield design guidelines for large UAS, a guidebook for UAS threats at airports, first free flight of Airbus naval UAS, studying sea turtles and saving baby deer, fully charging drone batteries in 5 minutes, and drones fly over a nuclear power plant.

The guidelines are primarily intended for airport managers, planners, engineers, UAS operators, and other stakeholders. If manned and unmanned aircraft are going to operate in the same airspace, airports will want to know the impacts. That includes the facility needs of large UAS and if they would use the same infrastructure. The contract with Woolpert is under the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP), which is managed by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and sponsored by the FAA.

The guidebook is intended to help airports plan for and respond to UAS threats. The National Safe Skies Alliance is a non-profit organization funded by the FAA. It works with airports, government, and industry to maintain a safe and effective aviation security system. Woolpert will develop strategies and consider detection systems. Guidebook production is already underway with completion planned for 2021.

The relatively compact and stealthy Airbus Helicopters VSR700 is a multi-mission naval UAS designed to operate alongside other shipborne naval assets. It seeks to provide commanders with a tactical picture. The VSR700 flew for 10 minutes within visual line of sight. It had previously flown tethered. Powered by a Continental CD-155 four-cylinder, FADEC-controlled turbodiesel running on Jet A, VSR sea trials are planned for late 2021.

The Turtle Tech project teams Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Northrop Grumman with the Brevard Zoo in Florida. It’s a drone-based surveillance effort to better understand the behavior of sea turtles. The computer visioning systems can identify individual sea turtles, as well as their species, gender, and unique markings. Funded with a Northrop Grumman Foundation grant, Embry-Riddle researchers plan to use the Applied Aeronautics fixed-wing Albatross VTOL and the DJI Matrice 210.

A wildlife and outfield manager in Norway has been saving injured baby deer using a thermal camera equipped drone. Flights are conducted every morning between 2 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. looking for injured baby deer in grasslands. The DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual is equipped with both a thermal camera and visual camera.

StoreDot is a battery developer that specializes in ultra-fast charging (UFC) technology. The company is applying UFC technology to the drone industry and they have demonstrated fully-charging a commercial drone in five minutes. StoreDot says their Li-ion batteries are “based on novel nanostructured materials combined with proprietary organic binders and enhanced electrolytes.”

On two successive evenings in September 2019, a swarm of drones flew over the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station in Arizona, America’s most powerful nuclear plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) called it a “drone-a-palooza.” Documents obtained from the NRC through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that four to six drones were involved. They were estimated to be over 2 feet in diameter with flashing lights.

Avian biomimicry, stadium sanitizing with a drone, a Galileo competition, a new HALE flies, drones and electromagnetic pulses, wildfire data from drones, new standards from EASA, an F-15 with a loyal wingman under its wing.

Netherlands-based The Drone Bird Co. knows something about biomimicry. The company has used flapping drones masquerading peregrine falcons to disburse populations of pest birds. Now the company has a non-flapping series called Aves (“aves” being Latin for “birds.”) CEO Jan-Willem van den Eijkel: “The AVES series is basically a very big fixed-wing bird whether it’s a gull, a hawk or an eagle. You can make any shape, but the gull was the most ambitious because of the wing shape. If you look at the gull, you’ll see there is no tail or stabilizer, so to make it look like the gull and fly stably, we had to test and develop a lot.”

Aeras Fog Company says their drone can sanitize an entire stadium in three hours. The 50-pound MG1S drone can spray disinfectant up to 20 acres-an-hour. People can occupy the sanitized space within three minutes. The drone is similar to those used for fertilizing crop fields.

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has launched the MyGalileoDrone competition. “The aim of the contest is to design, develop, test, and prepare for commercial launch a drone-based application and/or service able to provide a position and/or time fix by using a Galileo-enabled receiver.” Galileo can be used on the drone, smartphone app, payload, or in any other device supporting the Galileo drone application. Initial ideas should be submitted by Aug. 31, 2020.

Swift Engineering‘s high altitude long endurance (HALE) UAS completed its maiden flight at New Mexico’s Spaceport America. The Swift HALE UAS is designed to operate unmanned at 70,000 feet and offers 24-hour persistent and stable upper atmosphere operations for commercial and military surveillance, monitoring, communications, and security applications. The 72-foot solar-powered air vehicle weighs less than 180 pounds and can safely carry up to 15-pound payloads for missions.

Northrop Grumman will use the Leonidas electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon system from Epirus. Leonidas uses solid-state commercial semiconductor technology for C-UAS defense and when fired, it creates an EMP that can be directed for precision targeting. It can “sanitise a volume of terrain or sky, creating a force field effect.” This will become part of the Northrop Grumman Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) systems-of-systems solution offering.

Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. (PRT) develops threat detection technologies while Hummingbird Drones deals with wildfire analysis from drones. The companies are working together to mount sensors on drones and provide software that allows live actionable data for wildfire analysis.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has proposed Special Condition Light UAS standards in a 31-page draft document. The standards are applicable to unmanned aircraft under 600 Kg with no occupants. EASA is defining risk-based certification requirements. The proposal is open for public comments until September 30, 2020.

An F-15C was photographed in a hangar with a loyal wingman drone attached to its left underwing pylon. The modified UTAP-22 Mako is from Kratos Defense and Security Solutions. The UTAP-22 reportedly has a price of between $2 and $3 million, can carry up 350 pounds of stores or other payloads, plus an additional 500 pounds of stores externally on underwing pylons and wingtip pods.

360° video – The NRC’s Aerial Robotics Laboratory

The National Research Council of Canada’s Aerial Robotics Laboratory is an indoor drone testing environment designed for the development of contact-based drone applications on elevated structures.

Video: The aerial robotics laboratory

Hacking drones as a target and as a weapon, military drone flight over San Diego, a State-by-State drone report card, a milestone in India for civilian drones, the EHang 216 goes sightseeing, and those drone sightings in the U.S. midwest, revisited.

A 96-page report titled How to Analyze the Cyber Threat from Drones [PDF] has been published by the Rand Corporation. The report summarizes 26 specific instances of hacking drones. The most common cyberattacks reviewed were denial of service and spoofing attacks against an active drone. The Rand Corporation recommends:

• DHS must continue to work with senior policymakers, cybersecurity experts, and other government and law enforcement agencies to move towards a coherent UAS cyber strategy.
• DHS should also prioritize the most critical vulnerabilities and find ways to close attack vectors and protect attack surfaces.
• DHS will need to monitor UAS adoption and anticipate the implications of widespread UAS diffusion.

The press reported that a new version of the Predator drone (the SkyGuardian) would be flying over San Diego. The General Atomics SkyGuardian has an advanced detect-and-avoid system with a Due Regard Radar to detect other aircraft, TCAS (Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System) for detecting nearby aircraft transponders, and ADSB (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) which broadcasts the drone’s location.

The authors argue that states should take the lead by creating drone highways that mirror the paths of the public roads beneath them. The “Fifty-State Report Card” ranks states on their readiness to get new drone technology into the skies. The ranking considers airspace lease law, law vesting air rights with landowners, and navigation easement law, as well as having an aviation advisory committee and the estimate for drone jobs. North Dakota ranks #1 and #50 falls to South Carolina. This is from the Mercatus Center, associated with George Mason University.

India’s first No-Permission No-Takeoff (NPNT) compliant drone flight was successfully completed. India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation banned civilian use of UAVs in 2014, but in 2018, a new policy became effective. UAVs had to comply with stringent manufacturing standards and also be compliant with the new No-Permission No-Takeoff (NPNT) architecture requiring a Unique Identification Number (UIN), an Unmanned Aircraft Operator Permit (UAOP), online permission for every flight, and compliance workflow through a fully digital “Digital Sky” portal. This Digital Sky platform was demonstrated with an A200 Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS)

EHang released a video showing an EHang 216 autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) conducting aerial sightseeing trial flights in Yantai, a coastal city in East China. Passengers flew around Yantai’s Fisherman’s Wharf in trials that are part of a “world flight tour.” EHang founder and CEO said, “As the world’s first provider of passenger-grade AAVs, we are honored to prove this game-changing air mobility solution by demonstrating flights to regulators, customers, partners and the general public. The positive support and feedback have strengthened our determination in our quest to bring this new style of mobility to the people.” 

Video: Self-flying EHang 216 Showcases Aerial Sightseeing Trips Over the Sea in East China

In December 2019 and January 2020, law enforcement agencies reported seeing drones flying at night in formations in parts of Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas. The sightings made national news, but we never got a really good idea what (or who) was behind this. Now a volunteer researcher with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain hundreds of pages of emails and other documents from the FAA and other federal agencies. Hundreds of other documents are still being processed by the FAA and some documents are being withheld by the FAA. The agency says they are exempt from FOIA.

Kespry announced the appointment of Krishnan Hariharan as Vice-President of Engineering overseeing Kespry’s Aerial Intelligence platform development and evolution. Hariharan was Vice-President, Engineering and Product Management for PrecisionHawk. Before that, he held a number of leadership roles at SAVO, Sabre, and OpenText. He also founded River North Labs, a technology consulting company.

Mike Winn is a co-founder and the CEO of DroneDeploy. The company was founded in 2013, originally to combat poaching. DroneDeploy is now a leading cloud software platform for commercial drones. Industry sectors they serve include agriculture, construction, mining, energy, forestry, and others. DroneDeploy customers get professional-grade imagery and analysis, 3D modeling, and more. Customers have mapped and analyzed over 100 million acres in over 180 countries.

Mike explains how drones have progressed from a novelty to an integral part of many business operations. Drones are increasingly becoming the future of work as they help industrial professionals remotely work, collaborate, and improve the safety of their job sites.

We talk about outsourcing drone operations versus using internal resources, and how they have become a simple to use tool that doesn’t require a specialist. Mike talks about the ease of data capture and analysis, and how the free Flight app can be used for flight planning and data collection that uploads images to an analytical engine for translation into a 3D model and map.

DroneDeploy finds that even though they support many different industries, a surprising amount of the technology is horizontal (cross-industry) rather than industry-specific.

DroneDeploy also operates DroneDeploy.org where they give free or subsidized licenses to organizations using drones for good.

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