The coronavirus has prompted calls for the Federal Aviation Administration to expand its rules for drones delivering packages to help limit person-to-person contact and slow the spread of the virus in the United States.
“People are looking at new ways to deal with social distancing, [and] they’re absolutely looking at new technologies to do that,” said Brett Velicovich, a strategic adviser at WhiteFox Defense Technologies Inc., a drone airspace security firm.
He added that “there is a lot of pressure happening right now from drone advocacy groups as we speak. They are telling the FAA to get moving on authorizing these drones to be used for various purposes.”
The FAA said it had received inquiries to expand drone operations to combat the coronavirus sweeping the nation, which has infected hundreds of thousands and killed thousands.
Increased drone use would lower the risk of spreading the virus because fewer people would touch the packages that are being delivered to homes and elsewhere, said Ashkhen Kazaryan, the director of civil liberties at the technology think tank TechFreedom, which examines legal and policy questions raised by changes in technology, including drone usage.
“There’s a lot of possibilities for contamination, whereas with drones delivery, no one is touching it aside from the person packing the drone and the person receiving the package,” she said, adding that “some of the other countries have been implementing more drones to mitigate risks associated with person-to-person contact.”
She said that Amazon has been testing drone deliveries in the United Kingdom because the FAA rules are too restrictive.
“Amazon has been testing commercial deliveries in the U.K. for a few years now. They have a more relaxed and innovative approach to drone deliveries than the United States,” she said. Amazon declined to comment.
The FAA recently allowed drone operators to obtain what is called a “Part 135 certification,” which mostly covers rules for manned flights, like aircraft transporting travelers, that have been expanded to include drone deliveries.
Part 135 certification requires that drone operators provide the FAA with the routes that the drones will be flown to make deliveries, and therein lies the problem. Unlike aircraft that fly to and from fixed locations, i.e., airports, drones can fly anywhere, but becoming certified restricts their delivery locations.
Guido Fuentes, an aeronautical engineer, explained the restriction during a Dronelaw.pro broadcast shortly after the FAA expanded Part 135 certification to include drones.
“This couldn’t be just some random route where people will say, ‘Well, deliver a pizza to a location that really has never been visited by the drone at all.’ These are still very structured routes,” he said.
Kazaryan deemed the certification to be more of an exemption than an allowance.
“It doesn’t automatically clear the way for drone deliveries across the country. It’s more of an exemption than a widespread allowance,” she said, adding that drone operators “get a certification for specific locations.”
She also mentioned that the FAA is “very slow and heavy” when it comes to granting the certifications.
“Bottom line is that there are some movements but with regulation both on federal, state and local level and very slow regulatory process drone delivery won’t be a reality for a while, unless FAA or states step up and put together a regulatory infrastructure that can save lives in the midst of this pandemic,” Kazaryan wrote via email.
Drone expert Velicovich said the only thing standing in the way of drones making deliveries anywhere in the U.S. is regulation because the technology is already available.
In other areas of the world, such as China, drones make food deliveries to promote social distancing. In Rwanda, medical supplies, including blood, are delivered via drone.
“The blood is literally parachuted down from the drone and delivered to the hospital,” Velicovich said, adding that “it’s not that the technology already doesn’t exist to date to do that: It absolutely does. It’s more a regulation thing. The FAA in the U.S. is the most restrictive in the entire world. So when we know we can deliver blood and medical supplies via drone in Rwanda, which is already happening, the FAA is not allowing that to happen in the United States.”
UPS received its Part 135 certification last October and is exploring how best to use drone deliveries in the current crisis.
“We are exploring potential ways UPS Flight Forward could contribute during this emergency,” a spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
Jay Heflin is the Business Editor at the Washington Examiner
