The Autonomous Future of UAVs

May 6, 2021 | AUVSI News

In October 2020, Skydio announced that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) was granted a first-of-its-kind approval by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct operations beyond visual line of site (BVLOS) for bridge inspections. These inspections are conducted using Skydio Autonomy, an AI-based flight engine that enables operations in obstacle-dense environments and areas without GPS. One hundred seventy miles to the northwest and six months later, Wing partnered with a local Girl Scout troop in Christiansburg, VA to deliver cookies to customers’ homes in another industry first.

While the purpose and end user in these cases differ, both types of uses rely on autonomous technology to be conducted safely and at scale. Autonomous drones are unlocking the national airspace from the ground up, making drones more useful and effective than ever. 

At XPONENTIAL 2021, representatives from the FAA and industry discussed how enterprise operators can harness the power of autonomy to conduct BVLOS operations and how regulators can promote trustworthy autonomy.

Brendan Groves, Head of Regulatory and Policy Affairs at Skydio, explained that autonomy makes drones smarter and enables operations that are safer and more scalable than ever before, asserting that, “Automation is the key feature defining the future of flight itself.”

The UAS industry broadly agrees that autonomy supports flight safety by enabling drones to fly at low altitudes and close to structures without human error. Autonomous technology allows a drone to check its health before flight to confirm safety, identify abnormal behavior during flight and take action to prevent any impacts to safety, and plan routes in advance to safely account for possible obstacles.

Autonomy also unlocks advanced operations that improve worker safety. Before relying on drones to inspect the thousands of bridges statewide, NCDOT workers were lifted in trucks or repelled down the sides of bridges to reach compact spaces. Only after receiving authorization for autonomous operations was NCDOT able to transition to relying on drones as a key safety tool in bridge inspections.

Margaret Nagle, Head of Policy, Regulatory and Community Affairs at Wing, echoed the importance of autonomy in enabling scalability. She reported that demand for Wing’s delivery services increased during the COVID-19 health situation, with the company making no-contact deliveries to thousands of customers. Increased frequency of operations is predicated on the ability of operators to oversee multiple UAVs simultaneously.

Lisa Ellman, Partner at Hogan Lovells US LLP, estimated this scalability will enable drone operations to expand by hundreds of billions of dollars and countless jobs in the coming decades. Autonomous drone capabilities will drive transformations in all vertical markets they serve, including inspections, natural resource management, consumer package delivery and manufacturing, and they will transform businesses and services in previously underserved and rural communities.

To take full advantage of these opportunities, regulatory updates will need to be made to enable uncrewed flight operations. Jay Merkle, Executive Director, Office of UAS Integration at the FAA agreed that a new framework is needed for the new century of aviation and pledged to work with industry on the new rules. Merkle noted that the responsibility for tomorrow’s regulation is not just on the regulator, but also on the regulated.

AUVSI supports regulations that are performance-based, enabling much-needed flexibility for emerging technologies, and that are developed through collaboration with industry, academia and other stakeholders. We look forward to continuing to work with the FAA and other agencies to demonstrate the safety of autonomous systems and to host conversations about outcomes-focused standards.