Commercial use of drones for deliveries and services will overcome a major hurdle in the US this week with new requirements that most devices broadcast a radio beacon with a digital license plate to ensure safety and prevent misuse.
All drones, except the smallest, will have to broadcast a radio signal to identify them and their location under new Federal Aviation Administration regulations, according to a summary of the action reviewed by Bloomberg News.
The new regulation, which will take effect 30 months after the rule becomes final, is an important foundation needed for drone deliveries and other commerce to take place. They mark the most significant regulatory expansion of drone capabilities since the devices first hit civilian markets about a decade ago.
The rules will be “an essential building block for enabling more complex drone operations safely,” the agency said in the summary.
The actions break a regulatory roadblock that had held back the growth of unmanned aircraft technology in the US. An ID broadcast is a response to concerns among federal law enforcement and homeland security services that the ever-improving flying machines would be used for crime and terrorism.
Several years ago, the FAA was set to expand in some cases drone flights over crowds and routinely allow them at night, but the other agencies did not want to go ahead with the rules until they addressed growing concerns about misuse of the devices . Separate rules are also expected soon for operating above crowds.
The FAA has not commented on its plans for the new regulation. According to her, the White House Office of Management and Budget finalized the revision of the regulation on Wednesday website.
It will be years before swarms of drones piloted by companies like Prime Air from Amazon.com Inc., Offshoot of Alphabet Inc. Wing and United Parcel Service Inc. buzzes with neighborhoods delivering packages. But the new rules provide an important platform for the industry to achieve those goals.
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A robust drone tracking system is needed to ensure public acceptance of these new businesses, UPS Flight Forward said earlier this year in comments to the proposal. “If illegal and unsafe operators cannot be identified and stopped, trust in the system will be eroded and voluntary compliance will be undermined,” the company wrote.
The new regulation requires drones to weigh more than 0.55 pounds (0.25 kilograms) to broadcast their identity on a low-energy radio frequency such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. That way, police or other authorities can monitor nearby drones.
According to the summary, civilian drones offered for sale in the US must be equipped with such technology from 18 months after the rules are finalized. Operators are not allowed to take off without a working ID beacon.
The regulations also allow existing drones to be retrofitted with such a system.
The rule does not require the devices to broadcast on a signal that can be sent by mobile phone systems to a national tracking network, a measure originally included in a proposal unveiled last year.
Wing, Amazon, and others seeking to set up delivery companies had urged the FAA to allow such an Internet-based national network to track devices.
Hobbyists flying the devices can apply for exemptions that allow them to operate without an ID beacon as long as they are flown in restricted areas approved by the FAA. Flying clubs such as the Academy of Model Aeronautics and educational institutions can apply for such exemptions.
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The FAA is responding to requests from recreational users and industry groups, adding privacy restrictions that make it impossible for the public to identify a drone operator using the ID beacon.
The FAA will keep that information confidential, she said in the summary, and will provide it to law enforcement and national security agencies when requested. That’s a departure from traditional aviation, where FAA flight tracking data is typically public.
The new rules are an attempt to tackle the explosion of drone use. The FAA had registered nearly 1 million recreational drone users, and they owned 1.3 million of the devices last year. An additional 385,000 commercial drones were registered with the agency, according to the records.
At the same time there is a wave of it reports of the devices flying dangerously near traditional airplanes and helicopters – even Air Force One – and cases where they were used for or drug smuggling terrorist attacks in other countries. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that drones were involved in several US mid-air collisions.
As the regulations were seen as useful to the industry, the crude concept received wide support. The FAAs The ID beacon proposal released a year ago garnered more than 53,000 public comments as several voters clashed on how to implement it.
Traditional hobbyists who have flown model airplanes for decades, some of whom lack the electronics to support a radio beacon, said by the thousands they feared the rules would be too restrictive.
More recent recreational users flying small helicopters said they were concerned about retrofitting their aircraft or adding expensive new requirements. Many also expressed privacy concerns about how the tracking information might be used.