FAA looking for the best way to ground rogue drones

19 May 2016

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The Federal Aviation Authority is looking for the best way to ground rogue drones. Earlier this year, the FAA introduced new registration rules for quadcopters, signing up nearly 200,000, but that had failed to stop miscreants, especially near sensitive areas like airports.

This week, the FAA said it had been evaluating a new drone detection system developed for the FBI, which it had tested at JFK airport in New York.

According to the FAA, it tested the system using "five different rotorcraft and fixed wing" aircraft at JFK from 2 May. It said it conducted 40 separate tests with the trial building on earlier research conducted at Atlantic City International Airport.

It remained unclear as to how successful the trials were, or what the FBI's drone detection system was about. The FAA had earlier signed an agreement with a company to use technology that could "passively detect, identify, and track" drone operators by monitoring radio signals. However, it was a busy market, and companies were employing everything from jammers to net-guns to training eagles to take out quadcopters.

Figuring out exactly how much of a threat drones posed to commercial flights was also a tricky issue and although reports of drones flying close to airports or aircraft had gone up, some had even suggested that at least part of this increase was due to objects being misidentified as drones.

Meanwhile, the FAA's regulatory framework had prevented the widespread commercial adoption of drones in the US as it limited most commercial drone use to specific applications such as land surveying. The new regulations could drastically change the situation if they opened the doors for drones to other applications, such as package delivery, according to commentators.

The FAA had a multitude of problems to address with these new regulations.

For starters, those who had applied for commercial drone permits had had a frustrating experience, complete with voluminous paperwork, and having to hire law firms said Jonathan Evans, CEO of Skyward, a company that provided software for enterprise drones, Business Insider reported.

Also, operators would need to have a permit to fly an airplane before they could even apply for a drone permit, which created a major roadblock. Evans said he expected the FAA to reduce these requirements and shorten the current training course for a permit in order to speed up the application process.

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