The Federal Aviation Administration now has the technology to hijack drones in the middle of the air, adopted as part of an effort to keep personal and commercial drones away from sensitive areas.
Despite strong warnings from the FAA to keep away from airports, civilians continue to fly their drones too close. According to FAA deputy administration Michael Whitaker, the agency hears of at least 100 cases a month of operators flying drones too close to aircraft.
Soon, the agency won’t need to rely solely on the warnings of it’s two education campaigns “Know Before You Fly” and “No-Drone Zones” to get the message across, Defense One reports.
The agency’s recent partnership with federal contractor CACI International is an attempt at a much more permanent solution to the problem of a catastrophic collision between drone and aircraft. That solution is to take control of civilian drones.
“It’s been used in military applications,” Rep. [crscore]Peter DeFazio[/crscore], an Oregon Democrat, said Wednesday, according to Defense One. “As they explained it to me, they can pinpoint the operator — that’s good. They can do numerous things: They can force the drone to land, they can force it to go back to the operator, or, in the case of hostiles, they deliver something to the operator.”
FAA is still testing CACI technology. The Aviation subcommittee on the House Transportation Committee called for the FAA to come to a solution Wednesday.
Sen. [crscore]Charles Schumer[/crscore] wants to introduce legislation mandating that drones come installed with software that recognizes the existence of virtual fences. Drones, regardless of the intentions of the pilot, will not be able to intrude past the fence boundary. But the problem with Schumer’s proposal is that if the software exists on the drone-side, then sophisticated users will easily be able to disable it, rendering virtual fences useless.
Lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction that FAA rules for small commercial aircraft haven’t yet arrived. Best estimates place the date at June 17, 2016.
Rep. [crscore]John Mica[/crscore], a Florida Republican, thinks a serious accident before then is inevitable.
As another interim solution, DeFazio recommended that the FAA establish a drone registry, where operations have to register with information like name, address and contact information—at minimum. He has also asked the Department of Transportation to help the FAA identify methods to prevent collisions and authority to punish operators who fly “in a careless, reckless or otherwise unauthorized manner.”
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