The Magazine of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu October 2017 - 12

FEATURE
I. Introduction
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have military,
commercial, and recreational applications. As UAV
technology advances, additional uses for UAVs are
continuously appearing. UAVs can significantly impact
many disciplines such as warfare, transportation, real
estate, agriculture, and even education. However, as
with any powerful technological device, UAVs can cause
harm either intentionally or unintentionally. The Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates UAVs, but
the regulations are minimal and uncertainty impedes
commercial use.
Additionally, safety and privacy
concerns have spurred calls for the FAA to update
current regulations.
The exponential growth of UAVs entering the air space
has created an obvious need for policymakers to address
the potential for harm, accidents, misuse, etc. UAVs
vary in size and shape, and they have very few physical
limitations on where and how they can fly. They are not
limited by physical barriers, e.g. walls and fences, that
traditionally maintained a degree of security and privacy.
UAVs pose obvious dangers to aviation safety due to
crashes and collisions. They can be unpredictable in the
hands of inexperienced or careless users. UAVs easily
invade personal space because of their ability to record
anything and everything in view. Consequently, UAVs
have the potential to infringe upon our privacy rights
due to their capacity to invade personal space.
Safety and privacy issues related to recreational and
commercial use of UAVs are the focus of this work.
Given the rate of rapid advancement in UAV technology
in the United States, it is becoming abundantly clear that
new public policies and regulations must be created to
protect public safety and personal privacy. The current
regulations for UAVs are reviewed and the inadequacies
of these policies are discussed. The paper concludes
with several recommendations to begin addressing
safety and privacy issues.

II. Current UAV Regulations
UAVs come in many different shapes and sizes and differ
substantially in weight depending on the appointed task.
For example, the MQ-9 Reaper is a military UAV that
weighs 2,223 kg and is used for surveillance and weapons
deployment. The DJI Phantom 3 is a commercial UAV
that weighs 1280 g and is primarily used for recreational
applications such as photography. The commercial uses
of UAVs cut across various disciplines and include:
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Crop monitoring/inspection,
Educational/academic uses,
Power-line/pipeline inspection in hilly or
mountainous terrain,
Antenna inspections,
Aiding certain rescue operations,
Bridge inspections,
Aerial photography, and
Biological applications such as wildlife nesting area
evaluations.

FAA regulations must manage the proliferation of UAVs
as well as their varied types and applications. The
number of UAVs for commercial and recreational use
has grown enormously. The FAA estimates that 430,000
UAVs were sold in 2014. By contrast, approximately 1.6
million UAVs were sold in 2015 [1]. This change in use
translates to about a 272% increase in UAVs sales in
just one year.
Regulation of UAVs is an ongoing debate. Current
regulations differ depending on whether the UAV is
used for military, commercial, or recreational purposes.
Considering the recreational and commercial uses of
UAVs, it is difficult to determine the exact dividing line
separating the two. Recreational use is a hobby with the
main purposes being pleasure and enjoyment, while
commercial uses relate to business support. "For example,
using a UAV to take photos for your personal use is
recreational; using the same device to take photographs
or videos for compensation or sale to another individual
would be considered a non-recreational operation" [2].
Hence, the same UAV could be used for photography by
a hobbyist and by a commercial real estate broker.
In June 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
set stricter regulations for commercial UAV flights to help
ensure safety. Individuals flying UAVs within the scope
of these set parameters do not require permission to
operate their UAV, however any flight outside these
parameters requires FAA authorization [2]. These new
regulations set limits on various parameters including
weight, the distance the UAVs can travel vertically and
horizontally, and hours of operation. The operation
limitations are summarized below.
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Unmanned Aircraft must weigh less than 55 lbs.
(~25 kg) (all inclusive).
The unmanned aircraft must stay in Visual Line of
Sight (VLOS) of the remote pilot.
Small unmanned aircraft may not operate over any
persons not directly participating in the operation.
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http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/brid/113-3
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http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/brid/113-1
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/brid/112-3
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/brid/112-2
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/brid/112-1
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