Homeless in Arizona

Drones' good flies hand in hand with bad, experts fear

Drones' good flies hand in hand with bad, experts fear

by Sean Holstege - Jul. 7, 2012 10:17 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Long a symbol of the nation's high-tech war on terror, drones are moving from the battlefield and borderlands into everyday American life.

Industry experts predict 30,000 unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, will be flying in the U.S. by the end of the decade. The expansion is driven by technological advances that have made them smaller, more sophisticated and cheaper, and new federal aviation rules that will open the skies to an array of drones by late 2015.

Robotic aircraft promise great advances in everything from humanitarian relief and environmental protection to news gathering and real-estate marketing, industry champions say.

In Arizona, UAVs have already been used for firefighting and crop management and are being tested for search-and-rescue missions. Elsewhere, they're being deployed to shoot video for television news and conduct law-enforcement surveillance.

"We're not talking about next-generation. We're talking the next five years," said Raynald Bedard, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Prescott campus, where students are preparing for careers in unmanned aviation.

Arizona hopes to lead the trend, wanting a piece of an industry expected to nearly double in size this decade. Worldwide sales are projected to balloon from $6.6 billion this year to $11.4 billion by 2020, according to defense-industry analysts at the Teal Group in Virginia. The state this month will bid to become one of six federal test sites for expanded, non-military use of drones.

But as with many evolving and potentially intrusive technologies, the civilian drone invasion won't arrive without controversy or questions about its impact on privacy and safety.

With the introduction of thousands of unmanned aircraft, many too small to be detected by radar, Federal Aviation Administration rules will be critical in reducing chances of midair collisions.

Civil libertarians warn that anything that can be flown by a law-abiding person can also be used by a drug smuggler, terrorist or Peeping Tom. In the hands of an unscrupulous journalist or law- enforcement officer, the snooping possibilities are chilling, they say.

Chad Black, a professional photographer in Flagstaff, quickly recognized the usefulness and the less-welcome possibilities of UAVs after his purchase in April of a Parrot AR Drone, a remote-controlled helicopter that Apple Inc. sells for $300.

Within 15 minutes of arriving home, he was flying the craft over his house and filming the San Francisco Peaks, using his iPad to control the device. "I wanted a way to take aerial photographs," said Black, 33.

When he posted flight footage on YouTube, the U.S. Forest Service called him, curious about the possibility of using drones to monitor the health of forests or watch for wildfires.

Black also flew the drone over a Phoenix neighborhood where he has a second home, and he had a sudden realization: "You could see my neighbors swimming in their pool. If that were me, I would feel violated," he said. Innovating with drones

Arizona has a long history of research and innovation in unmanned flight.

The state is home to key military bases, test sites and defense contractors that have been active in robotic flight for years. As those technologies and industries have matured, they have spun off startup companies that capitalize on the available labs, airspace and expertise.

Brock Technologies of Tucson is among them. Keith and Jessica Brock left Raytheon Corp. in 2007 to advance the company they had founded a couple of years earlier.

The company, which makes drones for government and military use, has 13 employees and sales that have doubled every year, Keith Brock said. He said he couldn't divulge specifics because the government prohibits it. The Brocks' niche is custom contracts to solve specific problems rather than UAVs that can be mass-marketed.

"In unmanned aviation, technology changes as rapidly as computers. In two months, it can be out-of-date," Brock said.

The Brocks were engineering students when in 2003 they mounted a Maricopa Agricultural Center camera on their test aircraft as part of a University of Arizona experiment. The drone measured moisture in plants. With that information, farmers could adjust their irrigation and get bigger yields. The farmers also experimented with his UAVs for crop dusting, an emerging use in some countries with less-stringent laws.

Among the Brocks' ideas for new drone capabilities was to help wildland firefighters, infantry or emergency-rescue teams reach remote places without arriving fatigued from carrying heavy gear. A UAV could carry their gear.

Other unmanned vehicles have already been used to help fight wildfires. Last year, as the Monument Fire raged near Sierra Vista, the Bureau of Land Management asked the Department of Homeland Security to fly border-surveillance missions over the flames.

"They could fly where big aircraft couldn't," said Dolores Garcia, BLM's fire-management supervisor in Arizona. "Using infrared capability, they can give us the size of the fire."

Because it was unmanned, the UAV also could fly at night, which conventional firefighting aircraft can't do for safety reasons. The U.S. Forest Service is asking the FAA to authorize the use of more drones for fire missions, Garcia said.

The Brocks also have successfully tested a vehicle capable of tracking a car. After the operator captures an image of the target, technology allows the drone to recognize it. After that, the drone does the rest. A company video shows the device tracking the car through winding streets.

"It follows you like a lovesick puppy," Keith Brock said.

He said he hadn't thought of the implications for surveillance, but such capabilities heighten the concerns among those who see the technology advancing far faster than privacy laws and other safeguards.

A drone that can follow a firefighting or rescue vehicle also could tail a girlfriend's or spouse's car, or a business or political competitor.

Many in the industry are aware of the snooping stigma that comes with their products, but also say the fears are inflated. The same potential for abuse exists for other aircraft, from ultralights to helicopters and small fixed-wing airplanes, said Paul Nelepovitz, Arizona chapter president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an industry lobbying group. The industry has released a code of conduct and touts its goal of thorough training.

Brock thinks the courts will settle things.

"The people who are serious will have the budget, discipline and maturity to fly and develop these properly," he said. "The rules will be based on liability."

He's more focused on creating machines that can save lives. He's been testing a system that flies two UAVs joined together, similar to the method used to transport the space shuttle using a jumbo jet. Once the "mother ship" drone locates a search-and-rescue victim using cameras and GPS, it orders the smaller plane to detach.

That smaller craft then uses GPS to pinpoint the victim and release lifesaving supplies. The smaller drone is disposable because it might have to be abandoned in treacherous terrain.

"They (UAVs) are for the dull, dangerous and dirty jobs," Nelepovitz said. "The demand is there, and the market is huge."

Arizona's drone bid

Arizona hopes to cash in on the anticipated drone bonanza.

By late this month, the federal government will solicit proposals from applicants seeking to host one of six national test sites, where researchers will figure out how to make safe, integrated flight in the civil airspace a reality. About 30 other states are vying for the selection in December.

Arizona appears well-positioned. The state's varied climate and terrain are ideal for testing aviation systems. Also, its long history and strong presence of defense contractors and drone training mean top UAV experts are already here.

Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona is the nation's main training center for operators who fly missions over war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and over terrorist hotbeds in Pakistan and Yemen. More than 10,000 operators have graduated from its program in the last decade. Patrols along the U.S.-Mexican border originate there, too.

"Arizona has an amazing opportunity because we've done so much training and testing over the last decade and we have such phenomenal weather," said Robin Sobotta, Business Department chair at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Prescott campus.

An emerging plus for Arizona is academia. Arizona State University, the University of Arizona and Embry-Riddle are developing new curricula to train UAV operators, designers and data analysts. The industry predicts demand for UAVs will create 23,000 jobs nationally by 2025.

At Embry-Riddle, associate professor Raynald Bedard saw an opportunity.

The aviation college's Florida campus focuses on large drone aircraft, such as the Predator, best known for carrying guided missiles to kill suspected terrorists.

But with small affordable UAVs set to flood the market, Bedard saw a need to train people to fly for civilian purposes.

He now has a dozen students.

In the fall, Bedard will launch a program for students to learn robotics, mission planning, data analysis and entrepreneurship.

At ASU, Mitzi Montoya, vice provost and dean of the College of Technology and Innovation, has similar aspirations. In the fall, the first series of classes in the UAV discipline will begin for junior-level aviation or engineering students.

"Our goal is to have in two years a full-fledged program," Montoya said. "Not a large number of universities are doing this -- fewer than five."

In Tucson, students under assistant professor Ricardo Sanfelice design and experiment on unmanned aircraft and robotic-controls systems in his lab at UA's Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.

He's been researching collision-avoidance systems on ground vehicles. Now he is trying to develop software that can predict the motions of multiple objects. Such endeavors may play a role in answering how the FAA can roll out collision-avoidance systems on drones and, later, all aircraft.

The privacy question

Not everyone is eager to rush into the new frontier of robotic flight.

A poll last month showed 42 percent of Americans were "very concerned" about their privacy if law-enforcement agencies use drones with high-tech cameras. Researchers at Monmouth University found strong support for drones' use in search-and-rescue missions, tracking fugitive criminals and controlling illegal immigration, but strong opposition to using them to issue speeding tickets.

Among those sounding privacy alarms are the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco and the American Civil Liberties Union.

While acknowledging the benefits of emergency-response drones, the ACLU said in a December report, "Interest in deploying drones among police departments is increasing, and our privacy laws are not strong enough to ensure that the new technology will be used responsibly." It warned that once law-enforcement agencies acquire drones, they'll be tempted to use them for unauthorized surveillance.

The group cited an example in which the Houston Police Department got special permission to fly a UAV that stayed aloft 24 hours. In 2007, the department told a local television-news team that it wouldn't rule out using drones for traffic enforcement.

In New York City, a couple having sex on a private rooftop balcony were filmed by a conventional police-helicopter team in 2004 using night-vision equipment, the ACLU noted.

The ACLU warned of the potential of widespread intrusion into daily life. Among the concerns were UAVs with night-vision equipment, emerging technology that can "see through" walls, and video analytics that can track individuals using facial-recognition software. Video also can be streamed on the Web live, drone pilots say.

The ACLU also warned of racial or other profiling and automated enforcement similar to highway photo-enforcement. It noted the government claims the power to follow the movements of citizens using GPS systems.

The ACLU did not delve into misuse of drones by individuals. But with the technology becoming more affordable and advanced, it's easy to conjure up intrusive scenarios: a sexual predator using a drone to stalk victims; a homeowners association official spying on neighbors.

"These vehicles are like flying robotic video cameras: They're small, cheap and portable and allow for pervasive surveillance in ways that aren't possible with helicopters," said Alessandra Soler, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona. "Without adequate rules limiting fishing expeditions, especially by police, people's privacy rights are seriously at risk."

Safety concerns

Aviation-safety experts also envision troublesome scenarios.

The accident rate among drones is seven times that of general aviation and more than 350 times higher than commercial aviation, FAA officials said in testimony before Congress in 2010. They often fly in dangerous environments or are experimental aircraft, but the safety record "warrants careful review" before drones can be integrated, the agency warned lawmakers.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which represents the general-aviation community, agrees. "This is very uncharted territory because there is no pilot on board to operate see-and-avoid procedures," said Heidi Williams, the association's vice president for airspace issues.

Williams and others said specific concerns won't be known until the government issues its proposed rules. But considering some drones can be hand-launched and some are smaller than a human hand, it's easy to see why pilots worry about crowded skies. Small but dangerous objects, like geese, can't be detected by radar.

For now, the FAA tries to keep skies safe by separating aircraft and restricting airspace to keep small private aircraft away from jetliners' flight paths. Midair collisions are extremely rare. The last such U.S. crash involving a commercial passenger flight was in 1990. The same separation rules limit where drones can fly.

But in the future, when thousands more UAVs take to the skies, some operated by amateurs who are unaware of the rules, safety risks will increase.

The FAA wants to develop collision-avoidance systems for drones as a step toward equipping all commercial flights with sense-and-avoid technology by the end of the decade.

Research labs like UA's are already working on the issue. And if Arizona becomes a federal test center, the state could play a large role in how the future of drones unfolds.

More on this topic

Uses of drones

Event security: Could monitor concerts and sports.

Forestry: Brazil rain forest monitored for illegal logging.

Damage assessment: A drone photographed earthquake and tsunami damage in Japan.

Humanitarian aid: Drones fly blood samples from remote South African villages to labs.

Disaster relief: Fort Huachuca-based aircraft fly into hurricane-stricken areas to find evacuees and predict storm behavior.

Real estate: Drones showed off luxury California estates until the FAA grounded them.

News coverage: The University of Nebraska operates a drone journalism lab.

Other uses: Border security, crop dusting, search and rescue, law enforcement, endangered-species protection, filmmaking, hazmat detection.

Sources: Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, Republic research

Drones used to detect IEDs in Afghanistan

Source

Spy planes help detect roadside bombs in Afghanistan

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Images from spy planes and sensors that detect wires that trigger explosives have helped to mitigate the No. 1 threat to U.S. troops in Afghanistan — roadside bombs — over the past year.

The Pentagon has filled the skies over Afghanistan with high-tech sensors, and the effect has been measurable. From March through May, troops in vehicles found 64% of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) before they blew up, an 11 percentage-point increase over the previous quarter. Troops on foot patrol discovered 81%, a 4 percentage-point increase, according to the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).

The rate of discovery before bombs exploded hovered around 50% for years. The most important measure of progress: IEDs caused less than half of troop deaths for the first time in five years.

"We are, in terms of detection of all types of IEDs, vastly better than we were a year ago," Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told USA TODAY in an interview. He credited airborne surveillance with driving progress against IEDs.

Detectors on aircraft, first used in Iraq, have successfully assisted troops in locating wires attached to bombs, which allows them to be defused. Radar is trained on the Afghan-Pakistani border, giving commanders a view of bombmakers' escape and supply routes.

"Where we still have a problem… is in the use of Pakistani territory: safe haven, safe supply," Carter said. "But we've gotten better at interdicting those sources of supply with, for example, airborne radars to watch people as they come over the desert or over the mountains. Those have been introduced during the last year." He did not specify the aircraft or detection systems used. But the Pentagon has fielded new systems in the past three years aimed at finding command wires or ground that has been disturbed to hide IEDs. They include:

•Desert Owl. JIEDDO started deploying this ground-penetrating radar in 2009, according to the department's annual report released in 2010. It is deployed on a piloted aircraft, Army records show.

•Copperhead. This was developed at the same time as Desert Owl. Both systems "use unique radar for command wire detection, complemented by advanced image-processing algorithms," according to congressional testimony in 2008 by Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, who led JIEDDO at the time. It is deployed on an unmanned drone.

The United States' technological edge appears to be overwhelming the Taliban's blunt force, says John Pike, executive director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense policy organzation. Cameras and sensors have become cheaper and faster, and computing ability has increased to sort through the growing amounts of data collected, Pike says.

"Everywhere we turn, we're producing sensors that are cheaper, faster, better," Pike says. "The enemy's stuck with that damn fertilizer bomb. It is an unequal contest. It is not a level playing field."

Nearly 90% of the IEDs are fashioned from homemade explosives, according to JIEDDO. A 110-pound bag of calcium ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer produced in Pakistan, can produce 82 pounds of explosives, enough to destroy an armored truck or 10 smaller bombs targeting troops on foot. An IED, detonated with a wire, punctured the hull of a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) truck on July 8, killing six soldiers.

Biometric data - fingerprints and retinal scans, for example - have been collected from a growing number of Afghans, including those joining security forces or applying for benefits or licenses, Carter said.

"What that means is that, if you have a checkpoint and you start stopping people randomly, it's much easier to pick out the people who are malefactors," Carter said. "We take latent fingerprints off of IEDs and later associate them with the guy who made them."

Success hasn't been cheap. JIEDDO has spent more than $18 billion to counter the threat.

Drone pilots gaining stature in Air Force

Drone pilots gaining stature in Air Force

Sitting in a desk 'cockpit' becomes more accepted

by Lolita C. Baldor - Aug. 9, 2012 08:59 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - At the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., becoming a fighter pilot is still a hotly coveted goal.

But slowly, a culture change is taking hold.

Initially snubbed as second-class pilot-wannabes, the airmen who remotely control America's arsenal of lethal drones are gaining stature and securing a permanent place in the Air Force.

Drawn to the flashy drone strikes that have taken out terrorists including al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen to the terror group's No. 2 strongman Abu Yahya al-Libi in Pakistan, airmen are beginning to target unmanned aircraft as their career of choice.

It's a far cry from the grumbling across the air corps a few years ago when Air Force leaders -- desperate to meet the rapidly escalating demand for drones -- began yanking fighter pilots out of their cockpits and placing them at the remote controls of unmanned Predators and Reapers.

The shift is critical as the Air Force struggles to fill a shortfall of more than 300 drone pilots to meet the U.S. military's enormous hunger for unmanned aircraft around the world.

Some airmen are even volunteering to give up the exhilarating G-force ride in their F-16s for the desktop computer screens and joysticks that direct drones thousands of miles away.

The difference is often generational, but many pilots see drones as the future of air combat.

Drone pilot Maj. Ted began his Air Force career as an F-16 pilot but shifted to flying drones and now says he won't go back to flying a fighter jet. He said piloting a drone is empowering because every day, it has a direct impact supporting U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. military doesn't allow drone pilots to make their full names public because of concerns the pilots could be targeted.

Asked which is harder to do -- manned or unmanned flight -- he said that at times, he's been more overcome by the torrent of information pouring in during a drone flight than in the cockpit.

"In an F-16, to form a three dimensional picture, I look outside," said Ted, who flew F-16s for about four years before switching to armed Reapers, a drone that can carry Hellfire missiles and laser-guided bombs.

"In an aircraft, you can look outside, and you know how high you are from the ground. You know that the guys I am supporting are over there and the bad guys are over there," he said. "But here I have a picture, and it shows me turning left, but I don't feel myself turning. I don't feel the speed; I can't look quickly and see where everybody's at."

Instead, he said, "I have multiple computer screens showing two-dimensional information that I have to then mentally build that picture."

Col. J.J. Jinnette, the division chief in charge of the Air Forces' combat force management, agreed that even though drone pilots aren't physically in the aircraft, "they get a great deal of job satisfaction. They can see that what they are doing is making an impact downrange."

Would Jinnette, a former F-15E squadron commander who flew fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, make the same choice Ted did?

"No. I'm a fighter pilot," said Jinnette. "I love flying. You're talking to someone who just loves flying."

Despite the end of the Iraq war and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, top military leaders staunchly defend plans to boost the drone fleet in order to meet intelligence, surveillance and targeting needs of U.S. commanders in other hot spots, including the Pacific, Africa, and South America.

Budget cuts could slash that spending, but members of Congress have largely supported the unmanned aircraft programs and voiced little opposition to the drone fever that has gripped the military.

The military's spending on drones -- which includes aircraft used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, known by the acronym ISR, as well as the hunter killers used for air strikes -- has grown from roughly $2.3 billion in 2008 to $4.2 billion this year.

"My current position allows me to see where almost every ISR asset in the world is being utilized," Lt. Gen. John Kelly recently told a Senate committee. "And what I can tell you from that is that there's simply not enough ISR to go around. It's obviously concentrated in a couple parts of the world doing very, very, very important work."

Kelly, who is being promoted and will take over U.S. Southern Command, added, "I will make as much noise as I possibly can, within, certainly, the halls of the Pentagon to increase the amount" of drones he gets in his new job.

Right now, drones are completing 57 24-hour combat air patrols a day, mostly in Afghanistan, Pakistan and areas around Yemen and the Africa coast.

The goal is to increase that to 65 patrols daily by mid-2014, with eight crews each. By 2017, the Air Force wants to have 10 crews per combat air patrols, in order to meet staffing requirements and allow the drone pilots time for schooling, training and other career-building time. Each crew is made up of a pilot, a sensor operator and a mission intelligence coordinator.

Appealing to wannabe pilots

To attract more drone pilots, the Air Force has created a formal new career specialty within the service and is ending the system that forced drone assignments on fighter pilots. The new system creates a separate training pipeline for drone pilots.

In a recent survey, the Air Force asked 500 airmen who started out as pilots but had been shifted to drones if they would like to stay on in the unmanned aircraft field. There were 412 volunteers.

Lancaster to launch aerial radar surveillance over neighborhoods

Lancaster to launch aerial radar surveillance over neighborhoods

August 24, 2012 | 8:59 am

The city of Lancaster plans to launch a new aerial surveillance system to monitor neighborhoods for crime.

The technology, called the Law Enforcement Aerial Platform System, will be attached to a piloted single-engine Cessna.

It's basically a radar system that will give deputies a bird's-eye view of what's happening on the ground.

The tool is similar to drones that are used by the military to survey war zones, with the difference that those are remote-controlled rather than attached to a plane.

Authorities say the technology will prove invaluable for the city because it's so large and spread out, and deputies can't be everywhere at once.

It could also help during natural disasters like fires or earthquakes by providing an aerial view of the situation.

Opponents have expressed concerns about government snooping, but city leaders insist that the surveillance will only be used to fight crime.

The Sheriff's Department plans to deploy LEAPS for 10 hours a day, at a coast of about $300 an hour. That adds up to about $90,000 per month and more than $1 million per year -- a hefty price tag in the cash-strapped city.

But city officials say that it's worth the investment to combat a recent spike in crime.

Lancaster's surveillance flights raise privacy fears

Lancaster's daily aerial surveillance flights raise privacy fears

August 25, 2012 | 9:02 am

Lancaster this week embarked on what experts say is a first-of-its-kind aerial surveillance over the city, using a small Cessna plane.

The plane, equipped with sophisticated video equipment, is set fly a loop above the city for up to 10 hours a day, beaming a live video feed of what's going on below to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department dispatch center.

The camera will inevitably pick up scenes of mundane day-to-day life. Officials said they planned to use the video only to track reports of crimes in progress, traffic collisions and other emergency situations.

About a few hours into its maiden flight Friday, the plane's video feed captured its first incident: a motorcycle rider who had crashed at 20th Street East and Avenue K. Using the video, deputies in the dispatch center were able to help paramedics assess the situation before they got to the scene. Later, the department got word that a group fight was brewing at Eastside High School. The plane moved into position and conducted surveillance above the campus. No fight occurred.

It has become common for law enforcement agencies to use aerial surveillance, including streaming video, during breaking crime situations. Some are even beginning to use drones for police work.

But Lancaster appears to be the first city where a camera will send video continuously to the ground, to be used as an integral part of daily policing.

For years, Lancaster officials have been exploring better ways to patrol the far-flung city. Mayor R. Rex Parris said he talked about various ideas, including drones, with aviation pioneer Dick Rutan and eventually settled on the concept the city is now putting into operation.

The city spent $1.3 million on the initial contract with Aero View, the Lancaster-based company that developed the program and will operate the planes. Beginning in a year, the city will pay about $90,000 a month for the service. Eventually, Parris said he hoped to add a second plane for greater coverage, and Aero View President Steve McCarter said the technology could be expanded to feed the video footage directly to deputies' patrol cars.

"This will allow us within five seconds of a call to get some eyes on location. If some robber is fleeing deputies, we get to learn where, thanks to this technology," Parris said. "In law enforcement, for a long time it has been known that it is a deterrent if a criminal believes there is a strong likelihood of apprehension."

When the plane is in the air, it will record every incident deputies respond to, Sheriff's Capt. Robert Jonsen said.

The plane's pilot, an Aero View employee, does not see the encrypted video feed. A watch deputy in the dispatch center guides the camera, and images can be viewed only with a special access code.

"We are very aware of privacy issues," Jonsen said, adding the videos will be stored for two years. "The protocol requires that the system be only used to monitor criminal activity."

Despite officials' assurances, the American Civil Liberties Union requested detailed records on the program last November, when the city approved the contract. Peter Bibring, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, said the organization had reviewed sample footage, which allayed some of their fears, but not all.

"As far as we can tell, the system isn't capable of seeing in any greater detail than your average pilot or helicopter pilot," Bibring said.

Had the system been capable of facial recognition, it would have presented more serious apprehension, he said. But Bibring said the ACLU was still concerned about infrared sensors and the potential to monitor and store data on people who are not suspected of a crime.

-- Abby Sewell and Richard Winton

Police chiefs urge limits on use of drone aircraft

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Police chiefs urge limits on use of drone aircraft

Want them to be unarmed, suggest warrants for surveillance

by Kevin Johnson - Sept. 6, 2012 11:02 PM

USA Today

The nation's largest consortium of police officials is calling for the limited use of unmanned drones in local law enforcement operations and urging that the controversial aircraft -- now popular weapons on international battlefields -- not be armed.

The first national advisory for the use of unmanned aircraft issued by the International Association of Chiefs of Police comes as federal lawmakers and civil rights advocates have expressed deep concerns about the vehicles' use in domestic law enforcement, especially in aerial surveillance.

Only a handful of police agencies, including the Mesa County, Colo., Sheriff's Department, are currently using unmanned aircraft. But Don Roby, chairman of the IACP's aviation committee, said an increasing number of departments are considering unmanned aircraft for such things as search and rescue operations, traffic accident scene mapping and some surveillance activities.

"It's very important that people understand that we won't be up there with armed predator drones firing away," said Roby, a Baltimore Police Department captain. "Every time you hear someone talking about the use of these vehicles, it's always in the context of a military operation. That's not what we're talking about."

In cases in which a drone is to be used to collect evidence that would likely "intrude upon reasonable expectations of privacy," the IACP's new guidelines recommend that police secure search warrants before launching the vehicle.

On the question of arming drones, however, the IACP issued its most emphatic recommendation: "Equipping the aircraft with weapons of any type is strongly discouraged. Given the current state of the technology, the ability to effectively deploy weapons from a small (unmanned aircraft) is doubtful ... (and) public acceptance of airborne use of force is likewise doubtful and could result in unnecessary community resistance to the program." ACLU urges privacy laws

The American Civil Liberties Union applauded the police group for "issuing recommendations that are quite strong in some areas."

"At the same time, we don't think these recommendations go far enough to ensure true protection of privacy from drones," the ACLU said, adding that privacy protections needed to be enshrined in law, "not merely promulgated by the police themselves."

Some proposed legislation, including a bill proposed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling for authorities to secure warrants before all uses, except in cases when the aircraft is being used to patrol the borders, when there is a threat of terror attack or in cases when life is threatened

Nonmilitary drones take to the skies in larger numbers

Nonmilitary drones take to the skies in larger numbers

By Eric Niiler, Published: September 10

On a clear morning in early summer, John Langford and a test pilot climbed into a twin-engine plane at Manassas Airport. The pilot taxied down the runway, lifted off and headed west. As soon as the plane reached cruising altitude, Langford, sitting in the back seat, pushed a button, and a robot pilot took over from the human one.

“It was an amazing feeling,” said Langford, the chief executive of Manassas-based Aurora Flight Sciences and a pioneer in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. “It was a lot of fun. You are looking over the robot and thinking, ‘I hope all the engineers did their jobs right.’ ”

The left side of the aircraft’s cockpit looks pretty typical, with a bucket seat, joystick and airspeed and engine pressure displays. But on the right side, the seat has been replaced with a collection of bundled wires and mechanical arms connected to the dashboard. This robotic device is operated remotely either from the ground or the back seat.

Langford calls this craft the Centaur, a play on its half-human, half-robot makeup; a team of engineers at Aurora has been building it for the past decade. They hope it will someday fly scientific missions across Greenland, ferry passengers around the United States and perhaps even carry patients to the hospital when no human pilots are available.

“You use either a keyboard or mouse to set the heading, altitude and airspeed,” Langford explained.

The Centaur is one of several dozen nonmilitary UAVs, better known as drones, that have been taking to the skies in the past few years. Many have been developed by military aerospace contractors in the Washington area. The Federal Aviation Administration has granted permits to 46 federal, local or state agencies and universities to operate these vehicles, which go by such catchy names as Cobra, Kestrel, Sparrow and Skate.

Civilian drones can fly only under certain conditions. Most can’t land or take off from civilian airports or fly over populated areas. Models whose total weight is less than 55 pounds must remain within the operators’ sight and go no higher than 400 feet. But FAA officials say they expect the number of commercial and scientific UAVs to rise as the agency develops new rules to integrate drones into civilian airspace by 2015.

Fungus flights

That’s good news to environmental researchers such as David Schmale, an associate professor in Virginia Tech’s plant pa­thol­ogy department. Schmale and his colleagues are using drones to sample air currents in their study of a fungus that has been devastating crops and fruit orchards.

Flying a drone from the ground is cheaper than hiring a pilot and gassing up a private plane, according to Schmale, and that’s important for a plant scientist on a grant-funded budget. The drones that Schmale and his team use are made from balsa wood or fiberglass and are powered by an electric motor. The craft, with wingspans of five to eight feet, are available on the Internet for $1,000 to $10,000. Schmale and his graduate students purchased a simple drone online, learned how to fly it themselves, and then began adding additional scientific sensors.

Schmale has rigged his drone with a set of Petri dishes connected to extendable arms that open and close during the flight. The dishes hold a growth medium that captures the type of fungus spores he is studying.

But Schmale can’t fly the plane wherever and whenever he wants. The FAA allows him to use a patch of sky above Virginia Tech’s agricultural research farm near Blacksburg and another one above Fort Pickett, an Army National Guard base south of Richmond. He has to file flight plans two days ahead of time.

Like many scientists, Schmale is looking forward to the time when he’s able to fly drones with fewer restrictions.

That day may be a few years off. There’s still an uncomfortable relationship between the researchers and do-it-yourselfers who want to fly drones on demand, and the civilian aviation industry and its regulators who worry about mixing remote-control and human-piloted aircraft.

A PR problem

UAV developers also say they face a public relations problem. When people hear the word “drone,” most think of the foreboding Predator aircraft that fires missiles on terrorist camps, according to Paul McDuffee, vice president of government relations at Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary that makes UAVs.

Firing weapons “is just one aspect of the capabilities of these systems,” said McDuffee.

Insitu’s ScanEagle UAV, which is launched by a catapult, can be used for both military surveillance missions and environmental monitoring. The vehicle is about 41 / 2 feet long, with a wingspan of 10 feet. It has been used to study migration of wildlife in Alaska, floods in North Dakota and the spread of invasive weeds in Australia.

“We have a lot of educating to do as an industry to make sure that people know that these things do not pose a threat or any kind of additional imposition relative to privacy,” McDuffee said.

Drones are an aviation technology — like metal fuselages, computerized flight controls and jet engines — that was developed by the military and that then migrated to commercial aviation. UAVs date back to the 19th century, and increasingly sophisticated models have been used in many conflicts since — most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they have been used for both intelligence-gathering and airstrikes.

Today, advances in battery technology, GPS navigation and computer software, and lightweight composite materials are making UAVs more affordable and flexible for scientific missions. Still, because of federal restrictions and public unease, it’s unlikely that we’ll soon see the skies above the United States filled with patrolling drones. For now, experts say, UAV manufacturers will find more opportunities to fly their drones in remote parts of the world.

One company seeking such opportunities is AAI, a Hunt Valley, Md., firm that builds long-duration military surveillance drones as well as a scientific UAV called the Aerosonde.

“It can go anywhere where it’s dirty, foul and dangerous,” said Mark Hender, general manager of AAI’s Aerosonde unit.

The Aerosonde’s specialty is long-duration flying on just a little gas — up to 26 hours with a small payload. Aerosonde flew into the eye of Hurricane Noel in 2007 on a NASA-sponsored mission. It’s headed to Antarctica this fall with a team from the University of Colorado to help researchers understand how carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is being absorbed into the Southern Ocean.

When things go wrong

For Aurora’s Langford, the next step is figuring out how to get drones and planes to recognize each other, something called sense-and-avoid capability. Right now, each airplane carries a transponder that identifies its position in relation to all the others around it. Air traffic controllers manage the flow of these planes.

In fact, when he was testing the Centaur earlier this summer, Langford had to turn the controls back over to the human pilot in order to steer clear of another plane that was crossing their path. The Centaur received a transponder signal from the other airplane, warning of its speed and flight path, but under current rules, unmanned aerial vehicles are not allowed to maneuver autonomously to avoid other air traffic.

Researchers from NASA and the Swiss military are working on ways that drones can interact with planes in the sky and controllers on the ground.

In Afghanistan, remotely piloted U.S. drone helicopters have shuttled food and other cargo to front-line troops, but it may be a long time before drones take human passengers into the sky.

“The real problem comes when things go wrong,” said John Hansford, director of the Center for International Air Transportation and a professor of aerospace engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“What happens when an unmanned aircraft is flying along and something like sunspot activity takes out the GPS? What does the airplane do? Part of the reason we are comfortable having humans operate airplanes is we believe humans can help compensate when there is a problem that is unanticipated.”

Niiler writes about science and technology, and lives in Chevy Chase.

More articles on drones

More articles on drones.