The Federal Aviation Administration will put forward a rule on Thursday which would empower the government to track the majority of the drones in the U.S.
The rule will need drones to implement a remote ID system, which will allow third parties to track them. The measure will help law enforcement detect unauthorized drones that may pose a security threat, paving the way for broader adoption of commercial drone technology.
The rule stated that the FAA expects all qualified drones in the U.S. to adhere to the rule within three years.
The approval is a milestone in commercial drone delivery, as firms such as Amazon, Uber and Google parent Alphabet are in competition to add unmanned aircraft to their fleets to save expenses and deliver goods faster.
In June, Amazon debuted its latest delivery drone as part of a push inside Amazon to speed up its delivery durations for Prime members. In October, Alphabet’s drone unit Wing officially released the country’s first commercial drone delivery flight. UPS’s Flight Forward subsidiary stated in October that it received federal approval to run a fleet of drones, giving it wide privileges to broaden unmanned package delivery. It was the first time the FAA had permitted such broad approval to a company to run a fleet of drones as an airline.
“This is an important building block in the unmanned traffic management ecosystem,” the Amazon rule reads. “All UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] operating in the airspace of the United States, with very few exceptions, would be subject to the requirements of this rule.”
Such regulation has been in the works for some years. Congress first directed the FAA in 2016 to post guidance about remote tracking by July 2018. The FAA requested multiple extensions on the deadline, attracting fury from Congress.
“Our issues are exacerbated by that fact that once a final rule is issued, the date by which UAS operators must comply with remote identification requirements maybe months, or even years, after issuance,” included the July note by the members of the House Committee on Transportation wrote in a letter to the FAA.
One industry body remains concerned that the time frame for enforcing the policy is too long.
“Our main issue is the implementation period, which is needlessly for up to 3 years. Until remote ID is implemented, the American public will be deprived of many of the vast safety, humanitarian and efficiency benefits of commercial drones,” stated Lisa Ellman, executive director of the Commercial Drone Alliance. “We need implementation yesterday, not 3 years from now.”
