The Future of UAS
UAS technology
advancements in the next five to ten years.
The biggest advancements in UAS technologies in the next
five to ten years need to occur in those areas that will push the unmanned
aircraft systems to be integrated in the National Airspace System (NAS).
Otherwise, two things will occur. First,
the technology will move outside the United States, such as Europe, who see the
potential of increasing jobs and opportunity in their countries. Second, innovators will seek other sectors of
the economy to make their contribution.
Michael Huerta, the FAA Administrator stated at the 2016
AUVSI conference that the US government understands the implication of not
moving fast enough to keep pace with the UAS community innovators, while
ensuring the safe accommodation, and integration of UAS in the NAS. He is
calling on industry to partner with FAA to get through the significant hurdles
that include technology challenges in sense and avoid. This is a major issue
requiring significant research and resources to solve. The role out of the UAS access into the NAS from
accommodation, integration and evolution will go beyond the next ten years (Huerta,
2016; Johnson, 2012).
Military vs civilian
sector.
The technology breakthroughs may be initial funded by
military programs in developing smaller form factor computers, software defined
radios, field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), cameras, radars, LiDAR and other
related systems to support sense and avoid, it will be the commercial sector
that will drive the technology advancement specific to the UAS community. There are limited military needs for the
sense and avoid requirements needed for the vast number of UAS, which will
operate in the NAS.
The military operates the Group III and IV aircraft in the
NAS, as they transvers from one operating area to another, the same can’t be
said for the smaller UAV, which will make the bulk of the millions of drones
sold in the commercial market in the coming years. For the manufacturers to be
able to sell these drones, they must work with FAA to develop the technologies
that will allow for the integration of the aircraft into the NAS. Without this occurring, there will not be a
UAS industry in this country. The
military may benefit from this effort, but is not directly affected. They will continue to operate as they have in
the past.
Specific advancements
and missions these advancements will support.
The advancements and missions in the UAS industry will be
defined in the products and services, they provide in the commercial
market. UAS will be an integral part of
our daily lives once they are integrated in the NAS. In the meantime, the regulations, such as
Certificates of Authorizations//Waivers, Section 333, and Part 107 will
accommodate the use of UAS in the NAS for the next five to ten years in ways
that permit, even in a limited basis, the products and services that will be
provided in the next five to ten years. The advancements to achieve this goal
occur in the development of sensors and the software solutions to process the
data and make it useful information. This is vital to commercialize the UAS industry.
Several companies are leading the way in this area. They are selling the service or products through
cloud offerings. While some support the
insurance industry such as Airware, there are others focused in the precision
agriculture using advance algorithms where were developed to process satellite
imagery (Airware, n.d.; Atlas, n.d.). There are other companies using
pixel-base data analysis on wind turbine system rotor blades (AirFusion, n.d.).
More of these efforts need to occur in other industrial sectors to advance UAS
usage in the next ten years.
References
AirFusion.
(n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from http://www.airfusion.com/airfusion/
Airware
The Operating System for Commercial Drones. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09,
2016, from https://www.airware.com/
Atlas.
(n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from https://www.micasense.com/atlas/
Huerta,
M. (2016, May 4). AUVSI Xponential Remarks. Retrieved December 9, 2016, from
https://www.faa.gov/news/speeches/news_story.cfm?newsId=20294
Johnson,
C. (2012, September 18). UAS Integration. Retrieved December 9, 2016, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eUyuK0u1fc
The
Future of Commercial Drone Use. (2016, March 29). Retrieved December 08, 2016,
from http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/03/29/403149.htm
