The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Monday that small drones will be allowed to fly over people and in the United States at night, an important step toward their use for comprehensive commercial delivery.
The FAA said its long-awaited rules for drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, would address security concerns through the need for remote identification technology in most cases to enable their identification from the ground.
Previously, small drone operations on people were limited to operations on people who participated directly in the operation, located under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle – unless the operators received a waiver from the FAA.
The rules will take effect 60 days after they were published in the Federal Register in January. Drone manufacturers will have 18 months to start building drones with remote IDs, and opera operators will have an extra year to provide remote IDs.
There are other, more complex rules that in some cases allow people to operate at night and for large drones.
“The new rules pave the way for further integration of drones into our airspace, taking into account safety and security concerns,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dixon. “They bring us closer to the day when we will see more regular drone operations like the delivery of packages.”
Companies are rushing to build drone fleets for faster delivery. The United States has more than 1.7 million drone registrations and 203,000 FAA-certified remote pilots.
For night operation, the FAAA said the drone should be equipped with anti-collection lights. Final rules allow the operation of moving vehicles in certain circumstances.
Remote ID is required for all drones weighing 0.55 pounds (0.25 kg) or more, but smaller drones are required in certain circumstances, such as flights over open-air assemblies.
The new rules eliminate the need for drones to be connected to the Internet to transmit location data but do so by transmitting remote ID messages via radio frequency broadcast. Without change, the use of drones could be banned in areas without Internet access.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International said the remote ID would “act as a digital license plate for drones … enabling more complex operations” while at night and people “are important steps to enable drone integration into our national airspace.”
One change, as the rules were first suggested in 2019, is that small drones need to have no exposed moving parts that draw human skin.
The United Parcel Service said in October 2019 that it had received the government’s first full approval to operate drones.
Last year, search engine Google’s sister unit, Alphabets Wing, was the first company to receive U.S. Air Carrier certification for single-pilot drone operations.
In August Gust, Amazon’s drone service received federal approval to allow retailers to begin testing commercial deliveries through its drone fleet.
Walmart said in September it would run a pilot project to deliver groceries and household products by automated drones but acknowledged that “it will be a while before we see the millions of packages delivered by drones.”
