Wonder why governments are so nervous about drones?

You only have to see a few videos like these to understand why governments are getting so nervous about drones.

Various government agencies globally, such as the FAA, Canada Transport, and the English Department for Transport (DFT) are all springing into action after a Black Hawk helicopter hit a drone over Staten Island, another drone hit a passenger airplane over Quebec City Airport and there was a near miss with a drone at Gatwick Airport.

Drone drops grenade on ammunition depot in Syria

The examples above were all incidents, made by people who assumingly meant no harm, but it becomes clear to everybody that it would be very easy to use drones for very different purposes, such as terrorism. Today this video surfaced, in which ISIS uses a drone to drop a grenade at an ammunition depot west of Mayadeen, Syria and eventually blows the whole place up.

So what can be done?

Well, the problem of people misusing drone is being addressed from multiple angles.

Governments are trying to come up with better laws and regulations. For instance, the Australian Government’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) recently launched a new website to educate drone pilots in their country about where you can and cannot fly.

The FAA in the U.S. has set up a secret advisory group that has been holding confidential meetings to shape U.S. policy on drones. More on this later.

And then you have a number of companies providing different ways to protect people against drones. Some even bring drones down with birds of prey such as hawks and eagles. In future articles, we will take a closer look at these options as well.

DJI’s Aeroscope

Some drone manufacturers have launched their own initiatives. For example, the Chinese drone manufacturer DJI just launched their new Aeroscope program in Brussels and will launch it tomorrow for the American market, here in Washington D.C.

In short, Aeroscope allows law enforcement and other government agencies to tap into the communications between a drone and it’s pilot with the controller. Aeroscope will provide altitude, heading, speed, drone registration information and if required also drone operator information.

As you can tell, there is a lot going on in this space. We, from DroneDJ will be watching it closely and report back to you.

Please let us know in the comments below what you think about drone regulation and where you see the biggest risks.

https://twitter.com/vincebeshara/status/922881633266667520

Look closely in the first image and you can actually see the grenade falling.

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