Beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)

Utility giant American Water is taking its drone program up a notch with a new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waiver to fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS). The waiver will allow American Water drone operators to fly their aircraft up to four miles away.

A group of aviation and drone sector companies in the UK are banding together to work toward increased use cases and frequency of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights across the nation, and propose policies to regulators permitting wider deployment of those missions.

Flight navigation tech specialists Iris Automation and Sagetech Avionics are teaming up to provide a one-stop shopping solution to ensure cooperative and noncooperative detection and air risk mitigation for both drones and crewed aircraft.

Leading US power utility Dominion Energy has obtained a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waiver to operate open-ended beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) inspections at over 40 plants using drones from Skydio, whose regulatory team helped secure the approval.

Aerial geophysical mapping specialist Overhead Intelligence has used a drone equipped with Iris Automation safety avionics tech to operate a combined extended visual line of sight (EVLOS) and beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) magnetometer survey mission over a wide area of Canadian mineral deposits.

The process to seek approvals to fly over people and beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) in 27 European Member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland has become easier for pilots operating the senseFly eBee X fixed-wing mapping and surveying drone.

North Dakota calls itself “the Silicon Valley of drone innovation.” And this summer, the state will be able to do full justice to that tag when six companies simultaneously fly their drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) for applications ranging from security surveillance to utility inspections.

In a first for Japan, renewable energy firm afterFIT has received approval to fly autonomous drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) at night. The approval has been granted by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism.

Talk about beyond visual line of sight. Swoop Aero has won approval from Australia’s Civil Aviation and Safety Authority (CASA) to operate a centralized facility that will allow employees of the drone delivery company to remotely pilot up to five different UAVs over three different continents at once.

American Robotics, a leading provider of fully automated drone services to enterprise customers, has obtained authorizations to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights at seven work sites across the US, bringing the company’s total to 10.

After achieving similar feats in the United States, Australia, and Israel, drone-in-a-box solutions provider Percepto has received its first Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver under the new European drone regulations. This waiver for Percepto drones comes from the Dutch civil aviation authority (ILT), while Germany and Belgium are expected to follow suit.

The FAA has granted Iris Automation a second waiver for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) autonomous drone operations on behalf of the City of Reno. But while the previous waiver required the use of Iris Automation’s advanced detect and avoid solution Casia X, this one utilizes the company’s Casia G ground-based solution (pictured above).

The Civil Aviation Authority of Israel (CAAI) says it will allow drone-in-a-box solutions provider Percepto to operate its drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) at three industrial sites in the country, including one which is owned by national water company Mekorot.

The FAA’s UAS Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC), which was formed to advance the regulatory path toward autonomous, safe, and routine BVLOS drone missions, has published its final report.

As part of its UAS integration initiative called BEYOND, the FAA has approved Iris Automation to fly a small drone autonomously beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) in a rural, unpopulated area south of Reno, Nevada.

Drone solution providers Censys Technologies and Soaring Eagle Technologies have secured a fresh beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This waiver covers a 12-mile distance, which the companies stress is the longest distance ever approved by the FAA.

Percepto, whose autonomous inspection platform AIM was named one of 100 Best Inventions of 2021 by Time magazine, has received the green light from the FAA for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations at Delek US Holdings’ refineries in Texas and Arkansas.

London-based navigation tech company Neuron has offered details on trials it completed in the UK last year, demonstrating its ability to successfully track drones operating beyond visual line of site (BVLOS) missions using its data secured traffic management platform.

The Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance (NUAIR) says it has gotten approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights over a vastly expanded 35-mile swath of New York’s UAS Test Site drone corridor.

If you’re into drone-in-a-box technology, beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations, and all things drone automation, you’re going to want to mark February 22 in your calendar. Enterprise drone automation software specialist FlytBase is putting together an online conference called NestGen where it will discuss and share the latest developments in the drone autonomy space.

Hard-charging Australian drone delivery and logistics company Swoop Aero has been granted beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) authorization to transport medical supplies in the northeast state of Queensland.