Civilian use of tiny drones may soon fly in US
November 30, 2011 | Source: Seattle Times
Drone aircraft may be coming soon to the skies near you.
Police agencies want drones for air support to find runaway criminals. Utility companies expect they can help monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. Farmers believe drones could aid in spraying crops with pesticides.
The FAA hasn’t permitted drones in U.S. airspace on a wide scale out of concern they don’t have an adequate “detect, sense and avoid” technology to prevent midair collisions; other concerns include privacy.
AeroVironment has developed its first small helicopter drone designed specifically for law enforcement. Matternet, a Singularity University spinoff, has proposed a network of drones to deliver food and medicine worldwide in isolated regions without roads.
Comments (2)
by Kristoph77
Smaller quadcopters could be attached to the top of cop cars, I can see an instance where a police officer pulls over a vechile and launches the copter to check out the occupances and possibly collect ID and Insurance info without ever have to get out of his own vechile.
Officers wont have to run after suspects either, perhaps a quad copter with an arm will even be able to pick dognuts for them as well.
by scubasonar
That’s great news! I would like to see drones used as a component of mesh networks for wildlife monitoring. Doing that legally would be a plus.