The sky is about to become a lot more crowded, according to a top Federal Aviation Authority official.
“The talking point is that there will be a million drones under people’s Christmas trees this year,” the FAA’s Richard Swayze told a summit in Washington, D.C last week.
Many of those drones will be sold by Walmart, which is offering 19 different types of unmanned aerial vehicles beginning as low as $19.99. The store’s most expensive drone, available for $274.95, is “operable using an iPad, iPod, iPhone or an Android device,” allowing almost anyone to use it.
As they buzz up as the newest trend in personal entertainment, drones are being rapidly deployed for a number of more practical uses as well. Here are a few examples.
Sports: Last month, the FAA approved the NFL’s use of drones for “aerial videography and closed-set motion picture and television filming.” However, the agency wanted to be clear that it was making an exemption for the NFL rather setting a precedent.
“The FAA has determined that good cause exists for not publishing a summary of the petition in the Federal Register because the requested exemption would not set a precedent, and any delay in acting on this petition would be detrimental to the petitioner,” the FAA stated.
Deterring poachers: Researchers at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies have been experimenting with the use of drones to detect poachers in Africa. “We don’t have to find poachers, we just need to know where the rhinos are likely to be,” writes Dr. Thomas Snitch, a visiting professor at the school. “We pile on the data, and the algorithms do the rest.”
“We’ve arrested a lot of poachers,” Snitch told NBC News. “By using science, math, and satellites and drones — maybe we have a chance to save some of these animals.”
Medical delivery: Construction of the world’s first “Droneport” for medical supplies is set to begin in Rwanda next year, with a goal of completing three ports by 2020. According to a proposal published by British architect Norman Foster in September, the goal is to establish “cargo drone routes capable of delivering urgent and precious supplies to remote areas on a massive scale.”
Those three sites, Foster wrote, “will enable the network to send supplies to 44 percent of Rwanda.” He also adds, “Subsequent phases of the project could see in excess of 40 Droneports across Rwanda.”
Internet access: Facebook is set to begin testing drones by the end of the year that promise to improve Internet access. Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of global engineering and infrastructure, said the drones will use a laser communications system “to connect our aircraft with each other and with the ground … making it possible to create a stratospheric network that can extend to even the remotest regions of the world.”
The drones, which have a wingspan the size of a Boeing 737, will fly at an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 feet. The Internet they provide, Parikh said, will be at a rate of about 10 gigabits per second, “approximately 10x faster than the previous state-of-the-art in the industry,” and they will be able to hit a target “the size of a dime from more than 10 miles away.”
This article appears in the Oct. 5 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.
