[Infowarrior] - Drone aircraft may prowl U.S. Skies

[Richard Forno]

Drone aircraft may prowl U.S. skies

By Declan McCullagh
http://news.com.com/Drone+aircraft+may+prowl+U.S.+skies/2100-11746_3-6055658
.html

Story last modified Wed Mar 29 15:33:19 PST 2006

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Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for
years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even
launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

Now UAVs may be landing in the United States.

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police
agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to
domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also
hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline
monitoring.

"We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance
and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United
States territory," Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner at Homeland
Security's Customs and Border Protection Bureau, told the House
Transportation subcommittee.

Kostelnik was talking about patrolling U.S. borders and ports from altitudes
around 12,000 feet, an automated operation that's currently underway in
Arizona. But that's only the beginning of the potential of surveillance from
the sky.

In a scene that could have been inspired by the movie "Minority Report," one
North Carolina county is using a UAV equipped with low-light and infrared
cameras to keep watch on its citizens. The aircraft has been dispatched to
monitor gatherings of motorcycle riders at the Gaston County fairgrounds
from just a few hundred feet in the air--close enough to identify faces--and
many more uses, such as the aerial detection of marijuana fields, are
planned.

That raises not just privacy concerns, but also safety concerns because of
the possibility of collisions with commercial and general aviation aircraft.

"They're a legitimate user of the airspace and they need to play by the same
rules as everyone else," Melissa Rudinger, vice president of regulatory
affairs at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, said in a telephone
interview.

Pilots undergo extensive training on collision detection and avoidance.
Planes that fly at night are required to have certain types of lights, for
instance. Operating an aircraft near busy airports (in government parlance,
"Class B" airports) requires a transponder that broadcasts its altitude. And
during all flights that take place in poor weather or higher than 18,000
feet above sea level, the pilot must be in radio contact with controllers.

No such anti-collision rules apply to UAVs. Rudinger is concerned that
UAVs--either remote-controlled or autonomous drones--will pose a safety
threat to pilots and their passengers. She's not that worried about larger
UAVs operated by the military that have sophisticated radar systems, but
about smaller ones that have limited equipment and potentially inexperienced
ground controllers.

"The FAA needs to define what is a UAV," Rudinger said. "And they need to
regulate it just like they do any other aircraft, and integrate it into the
system. The problem is the technology has advanced, and there are no
regulations that talk about how to certify these aircraft, how to certify
the operator, and how to operate in the national airspace system."

For its part, the FAA says it's created a UAV "program office" to come up
with new rules of the sky. Preliminary standards for "sense and avoid" UAV
avionics are expected in three to four years.

"Currently there is no recognized technology solution that could make these
aircraft capable of meeting regulatory requirements for 'see and avoid,' and
'command and control,'" said Nick Sabatini, associate FAA administrator for
aviation safety. "Further, some unmanned aircraft will likely never receive
unrestricted access to (U.S. airspace) due to the limited amount of avionics
it can carry because of weight, such as transponders, that can be installed
in a vehicle itself weighing just a few ounces."

Complicating the question of how to deal with UAVs is the fact that there
are so many different varieties of them. Some are essentially large model
aircraft and weigh only a few ounces or pounds, while some military models
are the size of a Boeing 737. Most are designed to sip fuel slowly, so they
have long flight times and low airspeeds--meaning that they could be flying
at the same altitude as a jet aircraft but at half the speed.

Egging on Congress and the FAA are manufacturers of UAVs, who see a
lucrative market in domestic surveillance and aerial photography.

"It is quite easy to envision a future in which (UAVs), unaffected by pilot
fatigue, provide 24-7 border and port surveillance to protect against
terrorist intrusion," said Mike Heintz on behalf of the UNITE Alliance which
represents Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. "Other examples are
limited only by our imagination."