Gadgetory

the summer of dangerous encounters between planes and threats controlled from the ground has seen one more by now you may have heard stories of drones flying where they shouldn't you don't want to try to do that like near an airport or over a crowded stadium or even above a wildfire drones are growing in popularity but to some people they're also an uncontrollable nuisance this is supposed to change that this is arrow scope it's Chinese drone maker DJ eyes new solution for detecting rogue drones it looks like your standard Pelican case but packed inside this box are antennas processors a crystal sky display and specialized software that lets you see and identify drones flying overhead provided they're within a few miles and this is just running Google Maps so you're layering your own information on top of Google yes that's right if you click in on a drone you'll actually see the historical information of where it's been flying near by you so for example if we're a sensitive facility and I see a drone just flying circles out in the background that's not a problem but if I see something playing straight towards me high-speed that's something I want all want to investigate right DJI is aiming this new product at public safety officials thank airports prisons railways and disaster sites basically places where drones flying overhead could be problematic so we went and talked to one of these officials nick martino is an operation specialist at the ventura county department of airports where he and his team have been beta testing an arab scope prototype since early october first one was great it just had some glitches the second one a lot more stable and the range is a little better which is great because we can really protect that five-mile airspace bubble Martino also flies drones himself he uses them for tower inspections and to monitor wildlife at Camarillo Airport it's still restricted airspace but in this case the airport ops team has gotten drone approval from the FAA so when he's not flying drones he's looking out for them I joined him on one of his patrols around the airport with the Aero scope box which he calls the gizmos you avoid any testing aircraft and sitting with types of inspections air 4/7 how many alien life-forms have you spotted out here with this thing alright just two yeah I think there's a bigger concern that we're colluding with Russia right now so that's the most common no idea that the heliports exist so if you zoom out we should see an icon yeah and we'll wait for it to get a bearing you get a lock there he is so we have an active drone but I do see a gmail and that's an opportunity for us you're relying on someone seeing that either right we got a hit yeah we have an inspire that looks like Port Hueneme so now what we can do is we can essentially send them a friendly email introducing ourselves in the airport and hopefully engaged what does the email usually say the airport doesn't approve or deny any FAA or any UAS operations but here's the proper method to getting approval to flying within you know the restricted airspace aero scope works by picking up the communication that's happening between the drone and the drone controller it decodes the information in the signal and then it displays the telemetry and drone data on the Aero scope screen the drones flight path only appears in the map when the drone is powered on or in the air once the drone is powered off it goes away on the map a narrow scope only tracks DJI drones at least for now but the history of the flight is still stored on the box and you can still see a pilot's email do you think this makes DJI customers nervous I think the vast majority of users want to operate safely and responsibly what happens if a law-enforcement agency sees a drone flying in restricted airspace finds the operator can they ticket them at that point I mean what happens to the drone operator on earth it will depend on the situation and the local rules and regulations but at minimum it starts a conversation or an investigation path so that if there is some sort of penalty that needs to be put in place law enforcement and regulation regulators have that tool at their disposal Harry also pointed out that unless a drone has been registered you won't see the pilots email on the box and he emphasized that DJI solution is a localized one not a networked one unlike say our cellphone networks so it's probably worth taking a quick step back and looking at why this drone detection tech has to exist in the first place the TLDR version is that innovation has outpaced regulation drones are growing in popularity almost 3 million personal and commercial drones are expected to be produced in 2017 according to a report from research firm Gartner which is nearly 40% more than in 2016 but despite their growth the rules around drones are still super confusing don't fly above 400 feet don't fly close to airports don't fly over people or beyond visual line of sight or a fly at night so those are some of the key fundamental ideas terms of airspace that's there's no question the FAA controls that space but then what you actually do on particular property that can be interpreted to be a local decision where things start getting more complicated is when you start applying in areas with restricted airspace which is why dozens of companies and agencies have been testing drone detection systems including the FAA itself a couple years ago the FAA started partnering with agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and technology providers like khaki to test drone detection at airports you know right now we just kind of have a Wild West situation of just everybody just does whatever they want and there's no real enforcement mechanism which you know that the date the biggest danger I think is that you'll end up with a situation where during this phase in which we don't have quite the right level of regulations or fools or systems and the infrastructure the danger is that something bad happens during this period of time that then kind of sours the public's opinion of drones in general that's Grant Jordan he's the CEO of Sky safe a SAN diego-based drone control start-up that's working with the military to keep unwanted drones away but sky safe doesn't just track drones it also intercepts them and Jordan says that's what the real regulatory battle could be about hacking drones to take them down when they truly are dangerous okay so taking down drones might look cool but there is a catch intercepting drones for the most part is illegal even if it's with a roll of toilet paper according to the FAA certain drone detection and mitigation capabilities are restricted by title 18 USC and other applicable US federal laws most federal agencies as well as state and local entities and private parties are subject to these laws some federal agencies have specific legal authority exempting them from these laws but yeah for the most part illegal and so one of the things is that if if this is a commercial UAS and it's registered commercially and you're intercepting a registered drone are you intercepting a registered aircraft and that's a big question right now in the industry and I think that coordination between the local government and the federal government they'll continue and we'll get a clearer picture on that Christine I hope that's technology that your team is working on how to remotely control a drone i from our perspective we think that any technology that develops in that space is gonna need to answer some very fundamental questions one is about the legal issue and more importantly also about a safety issue so a lot of the implementations and then thinking around taking control of the drone we believe whether it's a forced landing or even causing a crash it causes a significant safety concern so whatever solution is developed would have to address those two questions what does safety really mean when it comes to drones the answer probably lies somewhere between sending a friendly email to a drone operator and shooting one down from the sky yourself most drone makers and even some safety officials like nick martino will say that the bad eggs are few and far between that most pilots want to fly responsibly and just need a little more education there's no doubt that the industry is stuck in somewhat of a holding pattern while it waits for important policy decisions to be made in the meantime companies like DJI are using drone detection to learn more about how people are using drones and that information might be the most valuable part of all of us exactly four times beep-beep-beep beep-beep-beep did you consider using the AOL dial-up sound that's definitely loud and obnoxious