AUVSI releases response to FAA’s proposed remote ID rule

March 2, 2020 | AUVSI News

AUVSI has published a 27-page set of comments on the Federal Aviation Administration’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for remote identification, which would require drones to be able to report their positions, allowing police or other officials to determine who is flying a particular unmanned aircraft. The issue is seen as enabling the wider use of drones for a variety of services such as package delivery, but the proposed rule has received significant complaints from the hobbyist drone flyers, who say it is too restrictive and would end their hobby. As of the afternoon of March 2, the last day to submit responses, the proposed rule had racked up more than 34,000 comments. AUVSI found several issues with the rule as well, including that its timeline for implementation is too long. The FAA says it will be three years before full compliance is achieved, but AUVSI’s comments say operations should be allowed immediately for those who can fly in compliance already. “The FAA should not only move forward rapidly with rulemakings on expanded operations, it should prioritize permitting expanded operations for operators that are in compliance with the final remote ID rule, rather than waiting until the compliance timeline expires,” AUVSI’s comments say. “Not only would this incentivize rapid implementation among operators, but it would allow the public to reap the benefits of UAS operations sooner rather than later.” It later adds, “An operator who can certify compliance with remote ID rules should be able to begin operating under any expanded operations regulation on day one, even if full systemwide compliance remains months or years in the future.”

Performance requirements The FAA should also set performance requirements for remote ID, not pick particular solutions, the comments say, following on the advice of the UAS Identification and Tracking Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). The FAA should avoid “technology mandates,” such as its requirement that drones should identify their location through both broadcast and network technologies in order to be able to fully operate in the National Airspace System. “These directives are inconsistent with the FAA’s overall goal of promoting the use of any technology that can meet the agency’s performance goals for accurate identification,” the comments say. “Therefore, the FAA should adopt a remote ID rule that focuses on performance requirements for reliability and security that are consistent with the ASTM F38 remote ID standard, 20 without requiring the use of particular methodologies to achieve those goals.” These requirements are also among the ones that have drawn the ire of the hobbyist community, who say they are too onerous for hobbyists. “To the extent that the FAA has specific objectives in mind, it should set these objectives out, rather than dictating technology. For example, if the FAA believes that it is important to allow a user to be authenticated in particular circumstances, it should lay out those circumstances and allow operators and manufacturers to determine how to meet those goals,” the comments say.  “Similarly, if the agency wants to ensure that federal, state, local, or tribal law enforcement or security personnel can identify aircraft from BVLOS (for example, from a command center), it should set that requirement out and give parties the ability to work to meet it.” The proposed rule would allow community-based organizations — which in this case basically means the Academy of Model Aeronautics — to set up FAA Recognized Identification Areas, or FRIAs, where drones that don’t meet the remote ID standards could still fly. However, it would only allow applications to set up a FRIA to be submitted in the first year after the rule is fully in effect. AUVSI says this timeline should be expanded to allow legacy drones to fly. “Recreational users —like those who would likely utilize FRIAs — are a source not only of public interest in UAS, but of individuals who may eventually make up the labor force of the UAS industry,” the comments say. The full comments are here.