Unmanned drones could very soon be delivering medical supplies to third-world villages, saving lives in disaster zones, and dropping packages on the porches of suburban American homes.
Those and thousands of other uses are part of a future that Ella M. Atkins, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, hopes her research will help bring about.
One problem: She and hundreds of other university scientists and their students, she says, find their work stymied by government restrictions on their efforts to fly such devices.
Only private hobbyists are allowed broad freedom to fly drones. Researchers must wait months for federal waivers, travel to government-designated test sites, or stick to indoor testing. Today’s developers of unmanned aircraft cannot just “go out and do what the Wright brothers did 100 years ago,” Ms. Atkins says.
The situation, Ms. Atkins told policy makers at a recent conference on Capitol Hill, is another case of a major technological breakthrough, with potentially major benefits, that’s being blocked by the government’s inability to keep up. “We’re kind of stuck,” she lamented.
The Federal Aviation Administration, concerned by the problem, is drafting new rules to ease some of the burden. But even the FAA’s proposed changes, expected to take effect next year, won’t allow drones — also known as “unmanned aerial vehicles” and “unmanned aerial systems” — to operate beyond the visual sight of their operators.
That blocks many applications for the devices, says James O. Poss, a retired major general in the U.S. Air Force who leads drone research at Mississippi State University. “Nobody can make money in this business unless you can fly it beyond roughly five miles,” says Mr. Poss, director of strategic initiatives at Mississippi State’s High Performance Computing Collaboratory.
As an example of a research opportunity thwarted, he cites the recent request by marine biologists at the University of Southern Mississippi for help in investigating a mysterious summertime concentration of whale sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. Drones could hover over the site for hours, at far less cost than sending a ship or aircraft 100 miles offshore to monitor the whales. But Mississippi State had to turn down the request, he says, because of the visual-sight rule.
Few Test Sites
Universities are trying to develop technologies that would make such remote drone operation safer, but that effort, too, is limited by FAA rules. So far the exploratory work is being conducted at FAA-approved sites. Mr. Poss is leading one such project, which seeks to convert military software into a tool that can process a variety of radar signals, creating a coherent data stream that lets drones avoid dangers in flight.
Mr. Poss was put in that position by virtue of Mississippi State’s selection, in May, as the home of the FAA’s Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, a hub for bringing together academic, corporate, and government research on the technology.
The FAA also chose six winners last year in a competition to find test sites for research on drones. Three were universities — Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, the University of Alaska system, and Virginia Tech. The site closest to Ms. Atkins is in Alpena, Mich., a four-hour drive from her Ann Arbor campus.
Corpus Christi won its test-site designation in part because of the research prowess of the Texas A&M flagship, in College Station, and in part because there’s so little else around it, says Ronald George, senior research-development officer at Corpus Christi. “We’ve got some of the most open airspace in the country over South Texas.”
Perhaps more important, says Luis A. Cifuentes, vice president for research at Corpus Christi, was the institution’s emphasis on making safety a priority. “I feel strongly that most academic institutions are not necessarily interested in, or have the wherewithal to put together, the infrastructure that is required for a test site,” he says. “It’s just not what necessarily interests the faculty.”
Drone operators who do behave responsibly are limited by those who might not, FAA officials say. The rules could be simpler “if everyone were fully educated, responsible, a good practitioner, as Dr. Atkins and her students are,” Christopher Swider, a manager in the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office, told the Capitol Hill conference. “But part of it is an effort to put a floor of safety for all operations, for everyone.”
Yet the contrast in safety records between university researchers and private operators has grown especially pronounced in recent days and weeks, with reports of private drones landing on the White House lawn, buzzing commercial jets, interfering with firefighting efforts, and being outfitted with a handgun.
A Spike in Demand
The burden on research may also slow the day when drones save lives. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University, for example, reported last month that blood-test samples could be safely flown on small drones, potentially improving health care for millions of people in rural and economically impoverished areas.
And there’s the economic promise. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the main industry group, has estimated that drones will bring 100,000 jobs and $82 billion in economic impact in the first decade after the FAA allows them to be integrated into the nation’s airspace.
The delays are frustrating to Mia N. Stevens, who went to the University of Michigan to work on her doctorate with Ms. Atkins. Ms. Stevens is developing software that helps drones steer themselves, and the FAA restrictions make it nearly impossible for her to test devices outdoors in windy conditions.
The FAA limits are “definitely impacting the progression of the technology,” says Ms. Stevens, who has an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering and information technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The industry agrees, says Tom McMahon, chief spokesman for the trade association. The online retailer Amazon hopes to begin using drones to deliver packages, but federal rules stand in the way, he says. For now, the company is testing the concept in other countries.
Some other industries, Mr. McMahon says, have received limited exemptions to try out drones, including insurance companies, moviemakers, real-estate brokers providing aerial property views, and utility companies inspecting power lines.
Even there, the FAA seems overwhelmed by the demand. The trade association last month issued a report finding that in its first year of granting industry-use exemptions, the FAA received some 1,500 applications on the way to producing its first 500 approvals. Most of the 1,000 other requests weren’t rejected; they were simply awaiting final decisions.
The regulatory restrictions are also hindering universities from training the work force needed to operate such systems. Both Mississippi State and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University have been struggling to get the exemptions they need to let student fly drones, says Mr. Poss, at Mississippi State.
As with research work, the application process takes months and needs to be repeated as instructors update the type of drones they use, he says. “Right now,” he says, “it’s kind of a cottage industry with aerospace lawyers. They charge about $10,000 a pop to do all the paperwork for you.”
Paul Basken covers university research and its intersection with government policy. He can be found on Twitter @pbasken, or reached by email at paul.basken@chronicle.com.
