Only somewhat related to the article, the broad use of the word "drone" to include both military drones (usually gutted aircraft, to my understanding) and civilian drones (usually smaller-scale robotics, like quadcopters) is a little confusing. I kinda wish there was some better term to differentiate them, because while I can see a military drone falling from the sky being a great hazard, a smaller quadcopter falling from the sky isn't going to be that bad. (Bad enough, I guess, but not to this degree.)
Like, for instance, some town in Colorado recently passed (or attempted to pass) an anti-drone ordinance giving citizens the right to shoot down drones. In my mind, this means military drones -- not quadcopters -- but to the average person in this town, it probably means any automated and/or remote-controlled aircraft, including quadcopter-drones.
Amazon was recently talking about using drones to deliver stuff. Delivery quadcopter-drones are way, way, way different from military RC-planes-with-missiles drones. Due to the common label "drone," however, I'm not sure the average American really knows the difference.
I have some experience with building large (2-3 foot rotors) quadrocopters. They are _heavy_. With batteries and motors and no payload, our copter weighed ~10-30 pounds depending on the battery loadout. I wouldn't want a 10 pound object falling at whatever the copter's terminal velocity is, smacking me on the head.
Luckily, in general the larger a quadcopter is, the more expensive it is, and thus the less likely it is to be used by an irresponsible person. This obviously isn't a perfect solution; there could be some rich person willing to spend big bucks on a quadcopter while having no clue what he or she is doing, or in the future there could be a $500 off-the-shelf quadcopter with 2 foot rotors (unlikely for quite a while, but possible). So these things self-regulate to a certain extent. That's why you hear of far fewer problems with 700 sized RC helicopters than with DJI Phantoms, despite the former being far more dangerous.
The issue I think is the cost to build redundant systems. We found that many times, external factors like weather and malfunctions were responsible for the vast majority of our critical failures.
If for example, some cloud cover shifts and we lose connection with our copter for just a few seconds, a lot can happen. Even though we built redundancies into our software (if no connection, hold position), those few seconds of lost control could cause some catastrophic problems. I think this is really the biggest issue surrounding drone flight; it's not the question of "Can we build autonomous drones?", and more of "Can we constantly guarantee control over our drones?"
DJI Phantoms and the more common clones by Walkera and other manufacturers are well known for going on "journeys of self discovery." When connection with remote drops, they are supposed to come back home, but some just tend to fly away, never to be seen again. One of those dropping on your head from 200 feet in the air will kill you!
I have never seen evidence that fly-aways area used by anything other than basic misuse, namely, not verifying that there is a GPS signal before flying. Granted, I think software changes could mitigate this, and I think I remember hearing that DJI released an update along these lines).
Still, misuse of plenty of things can have a probability of killing someone. Automobiles are the most obvious example. Bicycles are a great example, since they can be had for similar prices and similar restrictions (i.e. basically none) as quadcopters. Even a baseball propelled from a bat can kill someone at least as easily (and I would argue much more easily) as a DJI Phantom.
I really appreciate you saying this. As a person starting a business involving UAS (UAV, RPV, "drone") I am really facing a PR problem due to articles like this.
Only to the extent that there is a scale issue. If it can fall from the sky and only give someone it lands on a bruise then it isn't much of a safety issue. A big quadrocoptor could do some damage.
The reason they use the word "drone" for all unmanned aircraft is because the word "drone" has been used to refer to unmanned aircraft at least as far back as World War II.
Like, for instance, some town in Colorado recently passed (or attempted to pass) an anti-drone ordinance giving citizens the right to shoot down drones. In my mind, this means military drones -- not quadcopters -- but to the average person in this town, it probably means any automated and/or remote-controlled aircraft, including quadcopter-drones.
Amazon was recently talking about using drones to deliver stuff. Delivery quadcopter-drones are way, way, way different from military RC-planes-with-missiles drones. Due to the common label "drone," however, I'm not sure the average American really knows the difference.
Anyway, just thinking out loud.