Drone Incidents - Stricter laws won't help!

Please be advised that this post contains strong language throughout!

You know that feeling when you’re already having a really shitty day and you run across a news item, headline or email that really makes your blood boil? Well, that’s how I felt this morning when I saw the headlines about London Gatwick Airport being closed because of a drone over the airfield. Again. Are people really that stupid? Or do they just not care about the damage they might be doing? Whatever the reason, I hope they find the perpetrators and lock them up for a loooong time. These fuckers don’t deserve anything better.

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The drone incident at Gatwick Airport would in all likelihood not have been prevented by stricter laws. Anyone who flies a drone over an airport simply doesn't give a fuck about the law!

For me this whole thing is doubly galling, as I’m not only an aviation enthusiast but a drone operator myself. Those of you who’ve been following my blog for some time will already know that I’m the proud owner of a DJI Spark, and absolutely amazing little drone that has helped me get some interesting footage. Whenever I fly, which thanks to the Irish weather is not as often as I’d like, I try to stick within the legal limits as much as possible, staying away from homes, security sensitive buildings or airports. I do this not just to save myself trouble, but also to be a good ambassador for drone flying and so far, most of the reactions I’ve received, for example when flying in Ballincollig Regional Park, have been positive.

It's perspective like these that make drone flying attractive to hobby photographers.

Whether it's in parks...

Or here on the coast, these shots used to be only possible with a lot of effort.

All of this however is put in jeopardy by stunts like the one pulled this morning at Gatwick airport. Some morons with the social skills of an ill-tempered walrus on Acid, and the spatial awareness of a stoned gopher are not only putting the lives of passengers and air crew at risk, but are also making it increasingly harder for regular recreational drone pilots to go about and enjoy their hobby. With every such incident, the voice for stronger drone regulation gets louder, naturally amplified by the earnest cluelessness and wilful ignorance of lawmakers, which leads to increasingly unrealistic legal guidelines for drone use. In fact, I’m beginning to understand how the Second Amendment guys in the US must feel.

All that whining and raging above, while cathartic, doesn’t do anything to actually remedy the situation. So how can such situations be prevented, or at least minimised, in the future? To understand this, it helps to understand some basic facts about the drones that are currently available, and the restrictions inherent in their constructions.

The quadcopter layout is pretty much the standard for drones these days. "Industrial" grade drones are usually simply larger, and may have more rotors.

The overwhelming majority of drones, including my own Spark, are quadcopters, basically miniature helicopters with four rotors. These require a significant amount of energy to remain airborne, so their endurance will naturally be limited. Most models will only be airborne for twenty to thirty minutes, with some, like my own, barely managing 15 minutes, less if you want to have a bit of “juice” left in the battery for a safe landing. In addition, most drones are designed to be controlled by a smartphone or tablet, and consequently have a very limited range. Remote controls are available for many models, I use one myself, but even then, we’re mostly talking of practical ranges of a few hundred meters at maximum, less so in areas with a lot of radio traffic, mobile phone signals or similar sources of interference. There are other characteristics, but I’ll just stick to those two for the sake of my argument.

Any drone operator will have  to be pretty close to their area of operations/target, given the limited range of UAVs. While maximum ranges of 2 kilometres are possible, interference, whether magnetic, WiFi, Bluetooth, or other radio sources can quickly reduce the effective range to a couple of hundred meters.

The big one here is range. Most airports these days are huge, even small ones like Kerry, Southend or Kassel. Runways are usually several kilometres long and at least 45 meters wide, with hundreds of meters of open grasslands between the runway and any perimeter fence. So whoever operates a drone over an airport will have to either be very close to the perimeter fence or actually operate directly on the airfield. Low light cameras and motion detectors around the perimeter fence would go a long way towards detecting any such unusual activity, and should be enough to get airport police onto the suspects, or at least reveal their identity, enabling swifter arrests. 

However, this technology is still basically reactive. It will help end such events and make prosecution much easier, however it will not prevent them from taking place in the first place. For that, two things are needed: An integrated air space management system into which all airborne vehicles are integrated, as well as a strict ban on the import, sale, transportation and use of any drones that are not able to be integrated into such a system, or that are not position aware. 

Now what the hell do I mean by that? Well, many of the most popular drones on the market today, such as the Parrot Anafi or my own DJI Spark, have built in GPS receivers. This enables functions such as “return to home”, but is also used for geofencing purposes, and to prevent drones from taking off or flying into restricted air space. My own Spark for example notifies me when I’m operating in controlled air space, and wouldn’t take off if I was within a certain distance of an airport. However, not all drones currently on the market are equipped with this, and unfortunately, it is also possible to simply overwrite the firmware on the drones themselves to circumvent such restrictions. In my eyes, it is vital that drone manufacturers are forced to lock down their drones in such a way that rooting or jailbreaking them is not possible, similar to the efforts that Apple is making with their smartphones and tablets. Any manufacturer which does not meet this obligation should be barred from selling their drones here in Europe.

In addition to that, it is vital that a dedicated UAV detection system is installed around vulnerable locations. Such systems already exist, with DJI AeroScope being the one that springs to mind for me. There are other providers of such systems as well. Such systems are able to detect and track all kinds of drones, even rogue ones with pirated firmware, simply by virtue of the fact that even those drones need to communicate with their remote controls. While such detection systems will not be enough to actually take down rogue drones, they enable detection even at night or when no one has actual visual contact with the drone.

The real end game around here has to be the integrated airspace management system, however. What the hell do I mean by that? Well, traditionally, air traffic control has been geared towards large manned aircraft because, until a few years ago, that’s all we had. Electronics and systems, such as transponders, were just developed around that, and are therefore still quite bulky. However, when you’ve got dozens, if not hundreds of small quadcopters zipping around, the old way simply won’t cut it. Therefore, several agencies and aerospace companies have been working on a system that tracks ALL vehicles in the air, and automatically coordinates their movements, keeping drones away from manned aircraft and sensitive installations, while allowing free flight when there’s no danger around. With every drone manufacturer opting for their own software platform for their drones, this is of course not an easy undertaking, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the only way forward.

Drones are a key component of the future, they’re not going away any time soon, no matter what some people may wish for. Barring drones, or passing more strict drone regulations will do diddly squat to stop rogue operators, even though the thick headed evolutionary waste products sitting in the numerous parliaments across Europe are probably incapable of grasping this very simple fact. What is needed instead is an infrastructure that can easily and quickly pin down not only the location of the drone but the operator. Anything else will just be window dressing.