U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao announced 10 state, local, and tribal governments who will conduct flight tests as part of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Pilot Program of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) (Washington, DC, USA).
“We know our diverse new partners will help us address a broad range of complex drone integration challenges,” says Dan Elwell, acting administrator of the FAA. “The fields that could see immediate opportunities from the program include commerce, photography, emergency management, public safety, precision agriculture, and infrastructure inspections.”
The 10 programs are:
- Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Durant, Oklahoma, USA)
- City of San Diego, California, USA
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Authority (Herndon, Virginia, USA)
- Kansas Department of Transportation (Topeka, Kansas, USA)
- Lee County Mosquito Control District (Estero, Florida, USA)
- Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority (Memphis, Tennessee, USA)
- North Carolina Department of Transportation (Raleigh, North Carolina, USA)
- North Dakota Department of Transportation (Bismarck, North Dakota, USA)
- City of Reno, Nevada, USA
- University of Alaska-Fairbanks (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA)
Over the next two-and-a-half years, the selectees will collect drone data involving night operations, flights over people and beyond the pilot’s line of sight, package delivery, detect-and-avoid technologies, and the reliability and security of data links between pilot and aircraft.
The data collected from these operations will help the FAA and Department of Transportation (Washington, DC, USA) craft new enabling rules allowing more complex low-altitude operations; identify ways to balance local and national interests related to UAS integration; improve communications with local, state, and tribal jurisdictions; address security and privacy risks; and accelerate the approval of operations that currently require special authorizations.
First announced in October 2017, the U.S. White House initiative is designed to partner the FAA with local, state, and tribal governments, which then partner with private industry to safely explore the further integration of drone operations. The program aims to tackle challenges related to the integration of drones into national airspace while reducing risks to public safety and security.
Source: FAA, www.faa.gov.