Drone Rules Not Keeping Up With Technology; FAA Struggling Under Acting Leadership

“As often is the case, policy and regulations … don’t keep up with innovating and iterating technology, and we see this across any kind of new technology in the United States,” Chamberlin said. Despite “inaction on the regulatory side, growing frustration on the legislative side and an industry that continues to draw attention … there seems to be a very strong appetite to get things done this year,” he said.

Drones factor in Congress’ work on FAA and DOD reauthorization, Chamberlin said. “There are some headwinds,” he said: “We’re in a split Congress and that could lead to a hardening of positions that could prevent true progress. I tend to be optimistic about this, but we’ll see how it goes.” Changes in the leadership of key committees in the Senate, especially on the Republican side, and Republican control of the House “will certainly complicate manners a little bit and slow things down,” he said.

Some members of Congress have grown frustrated with the lack of progress on drone rules at the FAA, Chamberlin said. The lack of permanent leadership at the FAA, with an acting administrator, means “it’s a little bit easier” for the agency “to be in a defensive posture than to make hard decisions,” he said. Congress deserves some blame because it failed to confirm administrator nominee Phil Washington, Hoffman said. That “has contributed to a slower, more cautious process within the FAA,” he said.

“There’s a recognition among many key lawmakers that this is still a nascent industry and there are limited dollars and some companies won’t be around in five or 10 years if we don’t get moving and put in place strong foundational structures to safely deploy,” Chamberlin said.

Advancing any technology requires that it become part of our daily lives, so we don’t notice it, said Casie Ocana, vice president-marketing at drone company Airspace Link. A recent study from Europe said people who are more knowledgeable and have been exposed to drones are “more accepting and trusting of the technology,” she said. Ocana said her company was at a recent National League of Cities event and found almost every city was using a drone in some way, “whether it’s for public safety or for surveying,” she said.

“We’re at a point in the industry where everything still feels new and shiny and bright, but we have advanced enough that we have a lot of data available to us,” Ocana said. Being able to show the potential impact of drones “has been really helpful for us to advance opinions and get questions asked,” she said. “If we’re doing our job right, people are going to get really excited,” she said: “We really need to get the public perception, the technology and the regulations aligned at the same level.” People continue to have questions about issues like privacy and security, which must be addressed, she said.

“This is a good time to be in tough tech, as we call it, or hardware,” said Orin Hoffman, head-government partnerships at The Engine. “We’re still getting over the lasting impacts from COVID on labor shortages and supply chains,” he said. “For many, many years the investment community has just been waiting for” action by regulators “to just really launch multiple industries within the airspace,” he said.

That people trust drones to be safe “is absolutely critical” to “widespread adoption,” said Rich Wronski, Charles River Analytics vice president-sensing, perception and applied robotics. Users need to be able to understand how drones use AI, he said: “Explainable AI essentially allows operators to develop trust in the systems they’re working with, going beyond what an autonomous system decides to do in any situation.”

“This was a very valuable year for AUVSI and an important year for us in many, many ways,” said AUVSI President Brian Wynne. The group is more focused than ever on Capitol Hill but also on financial issues as members go to capital markets as they scale up, he said.