Eyes in the skies
The drones have launched. They are circling overhead, poised to become an $89 billion global industry. And everywhere they look, trouserless people are scrambling to catch up, Bruce Munro writes.
Mike Smith’s excitement is undeniable. In an upstairs shop in Dunedin’s warehouse precinct the industrial electrician is preparing his pride and joy for takeoff.
”It’s absolutely awesome,” Mr Smith says, flipping a switch on the controller.
The room fills with the chop-chop hum of the Blade 350 QX quad flyer’s rotors swinging into life. Red and blue lights glow on the underside of the rotor arms, radio controller joysticks are tweaked, and the drone, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), rises into the air.
”It’s amazing,” he says as the craft hovers at head height and then, at his command, drifts towards the far wall.
”I’m chomping at the bit to fly it outside with full GPS lock.”
Mr Smith has spent about $1100 on this UAV, which he says is cheaper but far superior to the home-built craft he has been flying for the past two years.
The United States-designed Blade is only 46cm wide, weighs just 480g, and has on board a GPS sensor as well as altitude and air-pressure sensors. It can do flips and rolls, can be set to ensure it does not fly within 5m of the pilot, and has a fail-safe switch that, when triggered, will see the quad-copter fly back and land at the spot from which it took flight.
And, of course, it has a mount for a digital video camera. With the right modifications it could be flown beyond the line of sight, the pilot using real-time video of what the UAV’s camera is recording to navigate in First Person Viewer (FPV) mode.
”That’s what I’m looking at doing right now,” Mr Smith says with a hungry glint in his eye.
Not surprisingly, demand for the Blade has far exceeded supply. New Zealand got half a dozen of the UAVs in the first shipment, Juan Gaspar, of Extreme Hobbies, in Dunedin, said.
His store received only one of the four it had ordered. More should arrive before Christmas.
And that is only one model of one brand. With technologies converging as fast as they are expanding, fixed wing and rotor UAVs of all shapes and sizes boasting ever-greater flying and viewing functions are taking to the skies.
The rush is on to find and exploit the drones’ myriad potential uses, from having fun and making money to gathering information and eradicating enemies.
Whether you call them drones, UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) or Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), they are forecast to become an $NZ89 billion global industry by 2020.
And with this new phenomenon comes a plethora of privacy, safety and regulatory issues, none of which we seem particularly ready to handle.
What is a drone, and how should it be regulated? That is what New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Privacy Commission are trying to figure out. To some, no doubt, it appears they have been caught with their pants down.
UAVs are a new phenomenon and should not be confused with the model aeroplanes of yesteryear, a CAA spokesman says.
When the moniker extends from the likes of the Blade to the Global Hawk – a remotely piloted 40m wingspan 7000kg jet-engined behemoth which can stay airborne for 30 hours – there is certainly something new in the air, he says.
And it is not just the variety of types, but the explosion of interest, that has caught officials somewhat unaware.
Since June, the CAA has received more than 40 applications to operate UAVs for commercial purposes in New Zealand. All but four have been for craft well under the 25kg mark. But the sheer number has forced the CAA to reconsider its position on UAVs.
Until recently the CAA required all commercial operators of unmanned aircraft to pass an aviation law exam, get their flight radio telephone operator’s licence and spend five hours with an instructor.
But when your potential commercial operators are boys down on the farm helping dad by flying a UAV up to the back paddock to look for a recalcitrant ram, or a real estate salesman wrestling a UAV into place to get an aerial publicity shot before a weekend open home, which hoops are the right ones?
Tim Whittaker thinks minimal regulation is the answer.
The Hawkes Bay photographer owns several drones and has sold another 35 to real estate sales people.
”The CAA needs to get their act together and make it easy for people to come on board,” he says.
”If they make it too hard, no-one will join.”
The CAA admits it does not know how many UAVs are in our skies.
It has responded by putting its requirements for under-25kg UAVs ”in abeyance” while it considers the best way forward. So, as of mid-September their message to all prospective UAV operators has in effect been: ”Go for it. We don’t care whether your pants are up or down. In fact, trousers are entirely optional”.
The interregnum, however, will be brief. The CAA expects to have a decision by Christmas.
In the eyes of the Privacy Commission, UAVs with cameras are akin to Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), only with wings … or rotors.
To comply with the Privacy Act, CCTV operators must inform people they are filming and ensure only authorised people can view what is recorded, a commission spokesman says.
But he also acknowledges people are free to take photographs or video for personal use without seeking consent when in public places (barring, of course, the likes of swimming pool changing areas and public toilets).
Is a sportsground a public area? An online video suggests several All Blacks do not think so. The clip, posted last year, shows the players using rugby balls to ”take down” a video-equipped UAV which flew over their practice session.
The Privacy Commission spokesman was not aware of ”any legislative protection from airborne surveillance”.
”In terms of what is being done, our technology policy advisers are keeping an eye on developments in other jurisdictions like the United States and Australia to see how they implement legislation around UAV use,” he said.
”It is an area we are aware of and at this stage we are observing just how they may impact on people’s privacy.”
In the meantime, it seems inevitable that the public will be viewed with their pants down (and the images no doubt posted to social media sites) several times before mediation, prosecution and public outrage clarify what is acceptable UAV etiquette.
Trying to get their flying pants on quicker than the next man (or woman) are researchers, businesses and all sorts of individuals with an entrepreneurial bent.
The use of UAVs to make a buck is in its infancy, but already it is clear this is the ideal environment for blue sky dreams.
Last month, The Ensign reported Otama farmer Mark Gardyne believed drones would be the next big innovation in farm work. Mr Gardyne estimated the $4000 UAV he imported from Mexico to monitor stock would save him $15,000 a year and add $35,000 a year to his bottom line by helping him make better farm management decisions.
It is an attractive sounding proposition.
Randall Aspinall, of Mt Aspiring Station, 40km from Wanaka, says he and a neighbouring farmer have talked about drones and made initial inquiries. As the technology develops, he believes they will have ”hundreds of uses” on farms.
UAVs could also be a boon for guides leading hunting expeditions. Mr Smith said hunters who had seen his Blade quad flyer had instantly realised its potential.
”They reckoned it could save them hours if it could be flown across a valley using infrared sensors to determine whether there were any deer there,” he said.
Southland and Otago family business True South is the first surveying firm in the South Island to get its own aerial mapping drone.
Company director David Manson said the $100,000 1m wing span Gatewing X100 UAV could fly itself along series of pre-programmed GPS waypoints, taking hundreds of photographs. It has been used for projects such as mapping drains around Invercargill Airport.
This week, retailers were told the next decade could see pizza being delivered by UAVs. The prediction was made by a speaker at Tuesday’s future of retail seminar, in Auckland.
Already Domino’s Pizza in the United Kingdom has demonstrated delivering two pizzas using an 8-rotor UAV. And in the United States it was reported last month that venture capitalist Tim Draper, an early investor in Hotmail and Skype, was backing a start-up company creating software to operate and manage multiple drones.
Mr Draper said everything from pizza delivery to shop purchases could be carried by UAVs.
Holding the big picture for New Zealand Inc is Callaghan Innovation. The Crown entity’s mission is ”to drive the innovation and commercialisation of products and services and economic success”, Steven Joyce, Minister of Science and Innovation, said when it was established in February.
Callaghan Innovation manages more than $140 million a year in government funding and grants. In July, it organised this country’s first UAS Symposium. About 120 people turned up for the two days of talks and demonstrations, twice as many as were expected to attend.
But Callaghan Innovation is interested in more than simply helping business pull its UAV pants up. It is also helping the New Zealand Defence Force down trou’ ”the enemy”.
The elephant in the room when it comes to UAVs – indubitably a flying elephant – is the military or intelligence drone.
Earning them all a dubious reputation, are the mid-sized Predator drones used to track and target insurgents in Afghanistan.
Last month’s GQ magazine told the story of former United States Air Force drone operator Brandon Bryant who took part in hundreds of missions in Afghanistan from control stations 10,000km away in Nevada and New Mexico.
During his six years in the military his squadron was credited with 1628 kills. He has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and questions the way drones are being used.
But if Predators are the most recognisable face of military drones, the reality is they range from tiny to enormous, and everything in between.
The NZDF was at the mid-year UAS Symposium. Its Defence Technology Agency (DTA), a grouping of about 120 scientists and technical specialists, has worked with Hawkeye UAV Ltd, whose main business is 3-D aerial mapping.
Also at July’s gathering were representatives of UAV research and development company Skycam UAV NZ. Skycam and the NZDF’s 16th Field Regiment jointly operate a 65 sq km by 600m high airspace for testing UAVs, east of Palmerston North.
Skycam has developed the 2.3m wingspan Kahu UAV, which the army hopes to use for beyond-line-of-sight reconnaissance. Last week, Minister of Defence Dr Jonathan Coleman signalled to defence industry representatives the Government wanted the military, in partnership with civilian companies, to develop cutting-edge technologies that could earn export revenue.
Comparatively small UAVs are not the only ones in our skies. In April, it was reported US Global Hawks had flown through New Zealand airspace numerous times. The Global Hawk has a wingspan greater than a Boeing 737, can reach altitudes of nearly 20,000m, and can survey more than 100,000 sq km of terrain during a single flight. The flights were thought to be linked to intelligence-gathering in Afghanistan and possibly China.
At the other end of the scale are miniaturised drones.
Nanotechnology advances in the past 20 years have done much to realise the military and intelligence potential of insect-sized UAVs.
In 2007, the Washington Post reported a lawyer and a student saw dragonfly-sized flying machines at an anti-war rally in which they were participating.
The eventual aim is to be able to create mosquito-sized UAVs equipped with cameras and microphones which fly like insects but are controlled by someone who could be anywhere in the world.
What is certain is that while UAVs may be flying too high or are too small for us to know for sure whether their trousers are hoisted high or around their ankles, they sure as heck will have the capability to see and report the exact position of ours.
