DJI announced today that the Chinese drone maker has been working on a new drone-to-phone Remote ID solution that uses WiFi. The new app was demonstrated with a DJI Mavic Air (DJI, Amazon) and a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise drone at the International Civil Aviation Organization’s third annual Drone Enable conference in Montreal. In their statement, DJI says that with this simple app “anyone within radio range of the drone can receive that signal and learn the location, altitude, speed and direction of the drone, as well as an identification number for the drone and the location of the pilot.” the new drone-to-phone Remote ID app and firmware updates from DJI are not yet available for public use as this was merely a demonstration. The company is waiting for further direction from aviation regulators and final publication of the ASTM International standard.

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One of the main hurdles preventing commercial drone applications from taking off in the US is Remote Identification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems or drones. Without Remote ID, officials will have no idea who is flying, where, where to, and for what purpose, and thus the FAA will keep their foot on the brake when it comes to allowing commercial drone services. The process of making Remote ID a reality has yet been delayed again by another three months as shown in this significant rulemaking report from August from the US Department of Transportation (USDOT).

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Yesterday, Brendan Schulman, DJI’s Vice President of Policy & Legal Affairs, pointed out in a tweet that per the USDOT rulemaking report, UAS Remote ID rulemaking had been delayed by another three months. This is indeed unfortunate as Remote ID for drones is the first regulatory hurdle to be overcome before we can expect the rules for flying drones over people or at night to be finalized. The new projected date for the ‘End of Comment’ period is now set at 10/29/2019, but keep in mind that this a projected date, not a fixed one.

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Earlier this month U.S. aviation regulators quietly filed a new proposed rule that would require recreational drone pilots to place their government assigned drone identification number on the outside of their aircraft. Currently, the roughly one million recreational drone pilots that are registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are already required to identify their drones but the marking can be placed inside the battery compartments for instance where it is not easily visible.

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