The NUAIR Alliance and UAS stakeholders establish a plan to support integration into the NAS, North Dakota kills a drone privacy bill while the University of North Dakota supports drone tech for bee populations, 50 applications for LiDAR-equipped drones, drone complaints in the UK, a new FAA drone marking rule, a drone shoot-down in Australia, a UAV helped a SWAT team, an agricultural drone fleet, and Boeing’s new UAS from Australia.
A two-day conference in Syracuse, New York was held with the Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research (NUAIR) Alliance and more than 40 UAS stakeholders from 20 companies. Objectives to move the UAS industry forward were established, including tests to help integrate UAS into the national airspace system, BVLOS use-case scenarios, and the part to be played by the UAS test site at Griffiss International Airport.
North Dakota House Bill 1493 would have made it a Class B misdemeanor to intentionally violate another person’s privacy using unmanned aerial systems. Reasons given for voting against the bill included its impact on the UAS industry in the state, that it singled out drones, unclear language and lack of intent language in the bill.
Australian company Bee Innovative says they “provide real-time bee identification, tracking and reporting services.” They provide early biosecurity hazard detection and significantly increase honey bee productivity. The company is working with the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks to enhance its current “BeeDar” drone technology.
LiDAR, or Light Detection And Ranging, uses a pulsed laser to capture data that can be utilized to construct highly detailed 3D maps. This article relates many applications for LiDAR-equipped drones.
Across 20 of the 45 UK police forces, there had been more than 2,400 reports of incidents involving drones last year. In 2016, there were 1,700 reports. These include cases of anti-social behavior, stalking and harassment, hate crimes, and dropping paintballs. The Home Office recently unveiled new drone legislation.
The FAA...
