49 UAV Privacy, Subpoenas, and Regulations
UAVs taking off in China, aerial video and privacy, a map showing UAS regs by State, FAA subpoenas realtors, FAA might not make their 2015 deadline, and drone poetry.
The News
Drone Hobbyists Taking off in China
Twenty-three-year old Jin Xing is representative of the enthusiasm for UAVs that is growing in China. He’s created the Butterfly Aerial Photography Workshop, a business he operates from his home. Jin and his partner take aerial photographs for client companies using six helicopters.
Aerial Photo Company Gets Cops Called on Them After Drone Startles Naked Woman
Portland, Oregon firm Skyris Imaging was out taking panoramic video for a developer. But when the resident of a 26th floor apartment looked out the window and saw a hovering drone, she assumes she was the victim of a peeping tom. So she called the police. As you would expect, the media went crazy with the story.
Are drones illegal in your state? This map can tell you
This map of the U.S. lets you click on a State and see legislation, proposed legislation, a description of the legislation, and associated websites.
Drone rangers slap Realtors with subpoenas
Real estate is one of the industries that offers an immediate business use for UAVs. But the FAA is watching UAV users that it suspects are operating commercial operations. Now they’re issuing subpoenas to real estate brokerages that use UAVs to take photos of properties.
Clever copters can learn as they fly
University of Sheffield’s Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (ACSE), is researching quadcopters that learn from their environment. These “flying robots” use camera images to build up a 3D map of the environment. Other sensors detect barometric and ultrasonic information. All this is fed to the autopilot software for navigation within the environment.
The use case is for aerial robots that can enter an environment, learn to identify objects and other features of the environment, and make decisions. The research quadcopters can also detect and interact with each other.
FAA will not meet deadline for unmanned aircraft
According to a report from the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, FAA will not meet the Congressionally mandated September 2015 deadline to integrate unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace.
The report identifies four areas of concern and makes eleven recommendations. These recommendations include the need for reports, milestones, timelines, clarification of responsibilities, process standards, more ATC study, definition of the data required from the six test sites, and metrics to measure performance to plan.
