The United States Federal Aviation Administration says: In order to fly your drone under the FAA‘s Small UAS Rule (Part 107), you must obtain a Remote Pilot Certificate from the FAA.
Pilot certification involves a non-trivial amount of study, covering many subjects, such as:
- Permissible blood-alcohol levels for pilots
- Right-of-way for drones vs hot-air-balloons.
- Maximum airspeed at which a person may operate an sUAS below 400 feet.
The hardest part of the test asks you to decipher a Sectional Chart. Here’s one for the Dallas area:
All those numbers mean something. Some of them are radio frequencies, some are altitude from sea level, some are altitude from the ground at that spot, and so on. The units are a mix of nautical miles, statute miles, and kilometers. And that’s just the numbers! It’s like reading hieroglyphics, but harder.
Then there is the NOTAM format. You should be able to translate this to English: KZAU/QMRLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/4159N08754W005. In case it’s not obvious, this says that there is a runway condition issue in the Chicago area, within a 5 nautical mile radius around the specified coordinates. It says more, but that’s the gist.
It’s possible that not everyone flying a drone in the United States has passed the Part 107 drone pilot license exam.
Autonomous Drones and Compliance
But what about autonomous drones that fly themselves? (Disclaimer: we are not a lawyer) The law currently requires:
- One licensed pilot per drone, even if it’s autonomous.
- Line-of-sight operation: The drone must remain visible to the pilot.
Even as autonomous drones continue to evolve, these regulations still apply. There are some recent exceptions, but if you send out a fleet of autonomous drones without the necessary permissions, then you may attract the attention of federal authorities.
So we can’t sell you drones, or drone software, that dispenses with legal requirements like the ones mentioned above, but at least our software knows something about sectional charts and NOTAM, and they know to avoid flying over airports. For example, here is our automated mission planner plotting a course through Dallas:
Scaling Operations with Autonomous Drones
Our technology today allows a single pilot to fly a fleet of autonomous drones to carry out a coordinated mission. The pilot could remotely install and rune an app or apps to the fleet of heterogeneous drones and other robots, or just say into our mobile app what the fleet should do:
- “Spread out and search nearby to find the missing kitten.”
- “Any drones low on batteries return to home base.”
- “Patrol the perimeter of this property and alert me if we are being overrun by zombies.”
Working together to get the job done quickly, the drones would happily fly beyond line of sight as needed to perform whatever tasks you require. But consult your lawyer first.