The Federal Aviation Administration today published a proposed rule aimed at bringing the budding drone industry a “crucial step” forward by making it easier to track and identify unmanned aircraft.

Companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and  Alphabet Inc.’s Wing are building delivery drones that can ship online orders to consumers faster by flying above traffic. Others, among them the recently funded startup Pyka Inc., plan to use drones for more niche applications such as crop dusting.

All this market activity is expected to make U.S. airspace a lot more crowded in the coming years. That means the FAA will need to develop a means of monitoring and controlling all the new unmanned vehicles that will be taking to the skies.

The rule the agency presented today seeks to lay the necessary technical groundwork. It would require virtually all commercial drones weighing more than 0.55 ounces to carry a remote identification system that broadcasts their location and a unique identification code during flight in real time. 

Exactly how this data is broadcast would depend on the situation. On a short flight that happens in a 400-foot radius of the operator, a drone may use a regular wireless internet connection to beam its location and identifier to a ground-based control station. More sophisticated drones that cover longer distances will have to transmit their details via radio frequency much the same way planes do. 

“Remote identification is a key stepping stone to facilitating the ability to conduct BVLOS,” the FAA’s rule proposal details, using the shorthand for “beyond visual line of sight” flights. “Although remote identification of UAS does not, in and of itself, permit BVLOS operations, it is a key stepping stone to the future ability to conduct those operations.”

Location tracking is especially essential for beyond line of sight operations because the FAA believes that accommodating long-distance drone fights, like cross-city e-commerce deliveries, will require developing new airspace safety systems. Agency officials have assigned this class of future safety systems the term unmanned aircraft systems traffic management, or UTM. UTM is expected to span everything from flight planning software to automated drone collision avoidance mechanisms. 

“Remote identification is a crucial first step in the development of these UTM services,” the FAA summarized in the rule draft.

The FAA has opened a 60-day comment period during which drone operators such as Amazon, industry bodies and experts will be able to submit proposed revisions to the rule. The current version gives drone makers two years to upgrade their aircraft from the time the regulation goes into effect, while operators will have three years to phase out drones that don’t comply with remote identification requirements.  

Photo: Wing