Oversight and Integration Issues
This is the sixth article in an ongoing series examining the role of UAVs—commonly called "drones"—exploring the uses of unmanned aerial technology outside of traditional or well-publicized wartime uses. Read the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth articles.
While the previous installation of this series discussed the contributions that Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) might make to the domestic American environment, there are still major obstacles to the adoption of these practices for application towards Homeland Security, domestic law enforcement, and private enterprise.
Regulations imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are perhaps the largest barrier to overcome before UAVs can be flown in the National Air Space (NAS), yet the FAA is making great strides to accommodate the integration of unmanned systems. In November 2013, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s FAA released its inaugural Roadmap outlining efforts needed to safely integrate UAS into America’s airspace. The Roadmap addressed contemporary and future policies, regulations, technologies, and procedures that will allow the country to move from today’s limited UAS accommodation capabilities to broader integration of new technologies.
At an industry conference in New Mexico in early December, James Williams, Executive Manager of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office, outlined an overview of the FAA’s activities and accomplishments of the last year that promoted UAS integration into the NAS. The five primary policy issue working areas included the topics of: 1) pilot vetting, 2) national security, 3) domestic policy, 4) cyber security and communications, and 5) privacy. These aspects must be thoroughly addressed by both aspiring commercial users as well as the FAA in order to make UAS use in the NAS viable.
The FAA made headlines at the turn of the year through their acceptance of applications to develop six UAS test sites. As articulated by the FAA, “While the selection of these test sites will not allow immediate access to the national airspace system for commercial and civil purposes, data and other information related to the operation of UAS that is generated by the six test site operators will help the FAA answer key research questions such as solutions for 'sense and avoid,' command and control, ground control station standards and human factors, airworthiness, lost link procedures, and the interface with the air traffic control system.” This represents a major step forward in the integration of UAS technology in the United States.
The unmanned aviation industry has a trade association for best practices and collaboration known as AUVSI (the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International), which has been heavily involved in airspace integration issues. AUVSI released a statement about Amazon’s December publicity stint that advertised the possibility of order delivery by drone. “While Amazon demonstrated that deliveries via UAS are technically feasible, the commercial use of UAS is prohibited in the U.S. while the FAA works to establish rules for commercial use. Even Amazon has acknowledged that such framework needs to be in place before their service can launch, and that will take until at least 2015.”
AUVSI’s assessment went on to discuss the economic impact of broad use of UASs in both public and commercial sectors: “ An economic study released earlier this year found that the UAS industry will have an $82 billion economic impact, and could create more than 100,000 jobs in the first decade after integration.” This figure includes tax revenue from sales of drones and their components as well as direct and indirect jobs created in support of industry activities. A market with such vast potential cannot be overlooked.
Public Resistance
While there is much promise in UAS technology, there are many objections and obstacles before they are accepted and adopted into mainstream use. Even if the above barriers to implementation were overcome, what appears to be the single biggest roadblock to the technology’s integration into our domestic civil and commercial society is the opposition of public opinion. Many Americans object to the concept of having surveillance information collected on their daily activities, but in practice it is not much different than the security cameras that monitor peoples’ coming and going in banks or places of public transit.
As one intelligence professional quipped, the challenge that the intelligence community and broader government faces is a public sentiment that seems to mandate, “Make sure you don’t spy on us, but make sure nothing bad happens.” The same seems to be true of broad public opinion on unmanned systems’ use for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) efforts.
Yet beyond the controversial issue of privacy, there is a real potential for abuse. It has been posited that malicious actors and terrorists could potentially use these systems for biological attacks or might fashion them as improvised explosive devices, but that is nothing that terrorists have not already attempted to do with other technologies such as rockets in Syria or VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices) in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, amongst other places. That being said, the world has not yet seen mass restrictions on automobile sales or use as a result of such threats.
There is also further concern over the potential for the weaponization of unmanned systems for domestic use, such as deployment of non-lethal tire punctuation devices or warning flares for non-cooperative vehicles. Yet the question remains: how would those capabilities be much different than the current practice of giving law enforcement agencies rubber bullets and tear gas? It is important to remember that none of these systems are fully autonomous: they require human input to determine their actions.
Although much controversy remains about unmanned system deployment in a domestic context, whether it is supporting law enforcement, advancing scientific studies, improving agricultural efficiency, assisting humanitarian relief efforts, or increasing commercial productivity, when used correctly UASs are capable of saving time, conserving resources, and, most importantly, protecting lives.
Whitney Grespin has worked in contingency contracting and international development on four continents. She currently specializes in security sector reform and capacity building.
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Drones in Our World, Part VI: Barriers to Adoption
January 30, 2014
Oversight and Integration Issues
This is the sixth article in an ongoing series examining the role of UAVs—commonly called "drones"—exploring the uses of unmanned aerial technology outside of traditional or well-publicized wartime uses. Read the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth articles.
While the previous installation of this series discussed the contributions that Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) might make to the domestic American environment, there are still major obstacles to the adoption of these practices for application towards Homeland Security, domestic law enforcement, and private enterprise.
Regulations imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are perhaps the largest barrier to overcome before UAVs can be flown in the National Air Space (NAS), yet the FAA is making great strides to accommodate the integration of unmanned systems. In November 2013, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s FAA released its inaugural Roadmap outlining efforts needed to safely integrate UAS into America’s airspace. The Roadmap addressed contemporary and future policies, regulations, technologies, and procedures that will allow the country to move from today’s limited UAS accommodation capabilities to broader integration of new technologies.
At an industry conference in New Mexico in early December, James Williams, Executive Manager of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office, outlined an overview of the FAA’s activities and accomplishments of the last year that promoted UAS integration into the NAS. The five primary policy issue working areas included the topics of: 1) pilot vetting, 2) national security, 3) domestic policy, 4) cyber security and communications, and 5) privacy. These aspects must be thoroughly addressed by both aspiring commercial users as well as the FAA in order to make UAS use in the NAS viable.
The FAA made headlines at the turn of the year through their acceptance of applications to develop six UAS test sites. As articulated by the FAA, “While the selection of these test sites will not allow immediate access to the national airspace system for commercial and civil purposes, data and other information related to the operation of UAS that is generated by the six test site operators will help the FAA answer key research questions such as solutions for 'sense and avoid,' command and control, ground control station standards and human factors, airworthiness, lost link procedures, and the interface with the air traffic control system.” This represents a major step forward in the integration of UAS technology in the United States.
The unmanned aviation industry has a trade association for best practices and collaboration known as AUVSI (the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International), which has been heavily involved in airspace integration issues. AUVSI released a statement about Amazon’s December publicity stint that advertised the possibility of order delivery by drone. “While Amazon demonstrated that deliveries via UAS are technically feasible, the commercial use of UAS is prohibited in the U.S. while the FAA works to establish rules for commercial use. Even Amazon has acknowledged that such framework needs to be in place before their service can launch, and that will take until at least 2015.”
AUVSI’s assessment went on to discuss the economic impact of broad use of UASs in both public and commercial sectors: “ An economic study released earlier this year found that the UAS industry will have an $82 billion economic impact, and could create more than 100,000 jobs in the first decade after integration.” This figure includes tax revenue from sales of drones and their components as well as direct and indirect jobs created in support of industry activities. A market with such vast potential cannot be overlooked.
Public Resistance
While there is much promise in UAS technology, there are many objections and obstacles before they are accepted and adopted into mainstream use. Even if the above barriers to implementation were overcome, what appears to be the single biggest roadblock to the technology’s integration into our domestic civil and commercial society is the opposition of public opinion. Many Americans object to the concept of having surveillance information collected on their daily activities, but in practice it is not much different than the security cameras that monitor peoples’ coming and going in banks or places of public transit.
As one intelligence professional quipped, the challenge that the intelligence community and broader government faces is a public sentiment that seems to mandate, “Make sure you don’t spy on us, but make sure nothing bad happens.” The same seems to be true of broad public opinion on unmanned systems’ use for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) efforts.
Yet beyond the controversial issue of privacy, there is a real potential for abuse. It has been posited that malicious actors and terrorists could potentially use these systems for biological attacks or might fashion them as improvised explosive devices, but that is nothing that terrorists have not already attempted to do with other technologies such as rockets in Syria or VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices) in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, amongst other places. That being said, the world has not yet seen mass restrictions on automobile sales or use as a result of such threats.
There is also further concern over the potential for the weaponization of unmanned systems for domestic use, such as deployment of non-lethal tire punctuation devices or warning flares for non-cooperative vehicles. Yet the question remains: how would those capabilities be much different than the current practice of giving law enforcement agencies rubber bullets and tear gas? It is important to remember that none of these systems are fully autonomous: they require human input to determine their actions.
Although much controversy remains about unmanned system deployment in a domestic context, whether it is supporting law enforcement, advancing scientific studies, improving agricultural efficiency, assisting humanitarian relief efforts, or increasing commercial productivity, when used correctly UASs are capable of saving time, conserving resources, and, most importantly, protecting lives.
Whitney Grespin has worked in contingency contracting and international development on four continents. She currently specializes in security sector reform and capacity building.
