Legislation

The biggest problem facing small unmanned aerial systems is the thorny issue of airspace integration.

Bigger airframes will have the chance to fit heavy systems, once developed. These might have the chance of meeting sense and avoid standards. Smaller aircraft just don’t have the extra payload available.

In 2005 the DoD adopted ASTM  F 2411 for sense and avoid and just earlier this year the European Defence Agency put US$ 70 million aside to work on a europe wide system to allow flight in civil airspace. The UK has Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation and Assessment (Astraea) programme

All around the world its heads down to make this happen.

For smaller craft it seems that restricting how far and how high they can fly, is the only way to go.

In most countries the dust seems to be settling on a height not above 400′ and horizontal distance from an operator of around a kilometre. The FAA might let you play with airframes weighing upto 2lbs from November in the UK under rules set up initially to allow the operation of model aircraft with cameras for aerial photography 7KG and 20 KG are two numbers to watch.