

FAA Unveils Drone Rules: Autonomy Is In, Drone Delivery Is Out - spectruman
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/faa-proposed-commercial-drone-rules#.VOIVdvXaa7g.hackernews

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krschultz
Note that these are _commercial_ drone rules. Hobbyists are still largely
exempt.

Overall, they are less strict on what you can do with a drone than I expected.
The only really tough one is that you must be within line of site of the
drone. I've had some ideas that would not fit in that box. Also, you can not
fly over people not involved in the flight. I know that will be a point of
consternation for a lot of people, but I'm happy about that one.

The operator licensing requirements seem a bit onerous. What the hell does the
TSA have to do with it? "Licensed drone operator" is effectively now a thing.
This is definitely written from the perspective that they expect drones to be
remote controlled vehicles on steroids, not autonomous computer controlled
machines. How do I get my algorithm FAA certified for flight?

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pj_mukh
"How do I get my algorithm FAA certified for flight?"

This one is critical. Most drone operators using anything above a hobby grade
UAV are using fairly sophisticated software to command GPS velocities. This is
assuming even more complex GPS missions are not being carried out. How do we
setup a certification regiment for that software and its extensions to sense
and avoid?

Granted, I don't have the answers. The FAA will inevitably suggest the same
certification regiment that large airplane autopilots go through, but that
seems prohibitively cumbersome.

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cmurf
A large airplane operating on autopilot with two pilots in the cockpit is not
operating autonomously. Autonomous implies no pilot at all, that is, you
merely tell the UAS some set of commands like "go to this address, confirm
recipient and their order, hand over the goods, return to base". The person
interacting with this autonomous UAS is akin to an operations manager for an
airline. They are not a pilot. Eventually it may not even be a person, that
too could be software that just sequences a bunch of errands to the nearest
available UAS.

What's actually required by an autonomous system is closer to a large
percentage of FAR 61 and FAR 91, which are pilot certification and general
operating rules, respectively. Your very basic recreational or private pilot
conforms to both of those sets of regulations on every visual flight. For
instrument flights requiring positive separation from air traffic control
because the pilot can't see and avoid themselves? That's another layer of
regulations and conformance. For charter flights, that's FAR 135 a whole
separate set of regs. For commercial passenger flights, that's FAR 121 yet
another separate set of regs.

Track down a FAR/AIM manual and start reading FAR 61, 91, 135 and the AIM
part. A bulk of this needs to be incorporated into an autonomous UAS
controller. The details of course have to change, possibly by a lot in some
cases, because we don't have things like primary or secondary radar or radio
communications at the altitudes UAS's will operate. But there are analogues
and they need to be invented, specs defined, infra created, and so on. And
while some of this could be implemented in proprietary form, the portions that
require communication or cooperation in shared airspace have to be publicly
documented.

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coin
"Be vetted by the Transportation Security Administration."

TSA vetting is not even required for a pilot certificate that is a US citizen.

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jimktrains2
Being vetted by the TSA may be one of the most useless things under any
circumstances.

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shit_parade
I assume law enforcement will be largely exempt from these rules, the US
military certainly will be.

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jMyles
I can't imagine why you're being downvoted. This is the most important part of
the discussion. We cannot abide a society in which the state claims domain
over all the air. The FCC already does this in a sense with airwaves.

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untog
What exactly is the alternative to the state claiming domain over all the air?
Everyone owns the air rights above their property? I'd love to see how those
negotiations work out when you want to land a plane.

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stevesearer
I'm curious at what point ones property line ends vertically both above and
beneath ground level. People are able to build structures in both directions
at great depths and elevations in the cases of mines and skyscrapers.

Perhaps in the case of airplanes flying or building a subway system there is
just some sort of easement or eminent domain ruling applied?

If anyone has some resources on this topic, I'd be interested in reading them.

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sctb
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9052919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9052919)

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transfire
Are we destined to become last in everything but killing well?

[http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-
News/2015/0204/Drones-...](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-
News/2015/0204/Drones-deliver-tea-in-China-Is-the-US-falling-behind-in-the-
drone-game-video)

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lsaferite
Does anyone remember a website (that posted here) a while back that showed
airspace classifications overlaid on google maps? I'm trying to find it so I
can get an idea of the airspace around me, but I haven't had any luck so far.

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ghaff
Look here: [http://skyvector.com/](http://skyvector.com/)

You need to know a little about reading aeronautical charts but for an airport
like Boston the inner thick blue circle labelled 70/SFC would probably be the
most relevant usage restriction.

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lsaferite
This one helped a lot even though it's not the one I was looking for. It seems
like there should be a site that can show the airspace restrictions specific
to private/commercial RC aircraft.

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nashashmi
Give it a little bit of time. They will come up with appropriate laws
regarding drone delivery. It may become mandatory to have an assortment of
safety features.

Mentioning safety features... let's think up a plethora of patents.

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cheald
> Must yield right-of-way to other aircraft, manned or unmanned.

Obviously not written by a programmer. This causes a deadlock in the case that
two drones encounter each other. :)

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theobon
While I appreciate your humour I want to clarify for anyone genuinely
confused. Yield is being used in the legal sense regarding fault not the
programming shared resource sense.

What this means, as far as I understand, is that in the event of an accident
between a manned and unmanned aircraft the unmanned will be at fault. However,
between two unmanned aircraft both will be at fault.

