Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Experts, enthusiasts weigh in on evolving drone landscape

Camera Drones

Minnesota Public Radio, Dan Gunderson / AP

In this May 14, 2013 file photo, one of several small drones designed for use by law enforcement and first responders is shown at University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, N.D.

For the average citizen, the world of unmanned aerial systems — or drones — is a scary one.

A whirlwind of questions about safety and privacy has defined the public debate about drones, which may soon serve as a major method of delivery for powerhouse retail companies like Amazon and surveillance tactics for local law enforcement agencies.

On Thursday afternoon, drone experts and enthusiasts descended on the William S. Boyd School of Law to talk about privacy and the law when it comes to unmanned aerial vehicles.

Here are the highlights of a panel discussion about the future of drones in North America. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

On the public attitude about drones …

Paul Oh, director of the Drones and Autonomous Systems Lab at UNLV: Why do people get concerned with crowd-monitoring versus having the government use it? In robotics, there’s a hypothesis called the “Uncanny Valley.” It’s kind of like when you watch the movie "Star Wars," [you wonder] what was the most endearing robot? R2-D2 or C-3PO? It seemed people liked R2-D2, even though it doesn’t look like us. The hypothesis is that the technology seems to be closer and closer to familiarity that people get repulsed by it. So that’s why C-3PO, people didn’t care much for that robot. You get so used to it that now you really like the technology.

On how authorities will enforce drone laws once they’re released …

John Valery White, executive vice president and provost at UNLV and chairman of the Nevada Institute of Autonomous Systems: This is what the FAA has charged the test sites to help develop. What we’ve been asked to do on the testing side is to create a system so that developers of platforms could come to Nevada, put their devices in the air, go through some structured tests and collect data that will help us address these three broad groupings of issues. One is: How do we keep these things in the air without them falling down because of some small accidents.

The second thing is: We don’t have a person up there so they can be hacked and taken over, so the security protocols … just keeping the connectivity to the platform is really quite crucial. And the third thing: We’re fairly a long way off from having a Predator-sized plane able to make major deliveries. On the other hand, most major airlines today fly themselves. The truth is: every time you’re on a 737, we have some guys there making sure we don’t crash. But a lot of the activity is happening in an automated way.

So the big issue that the FAA has asked us to do is how do we ensure that these devices in the sky are safe? As these platforms get bigger, you get more capability, but at the same time it makes them much heavier. These are the base technological questions that are afoot. But none of these address the safety of the devices in the air.

On how federal aviation regulations will alter the drone landscape …

White: Imagine the free-for-all on the Strip, if everybody brings their UAS so that they can cruise the Strip without physically cruising it. That’s a disaster. Eventually, as things tend to go, it becomes like beads in New Orleans. It used to be just Mardi Gras, now they’re on Bourbon Street every single day. You can imagine a world where our commissioners are faced with this horrible scenario. It’s dozens if not hundreds of UAS devices flying up and down the Strip. That’s the sort of thing that will prompt the commission to pass a regulation. Part of the difficulty we have in Nevada, of course, is the absence of intermediate appellate court. It makes it very difficult for us to develop law. I’m sure the Supreme Court would take this up 5, 6, 7, 8 times in a five-year period. That’s really too slow.

On the use of drones in the media ...

Tom Wilczek, aerospace and defense specialist with the Governor's Office of Economic Development: There are universities across the nation that actually have drone journalism programs. They’re teaching their journalists how to use this technology to advance the media and news gathering. [The question is] how do we ensure that media, which has shown a desire to technologically advance and take this industry and technology and mature it, is allowed to continue to use that technology?

On how long drone development has really been going on …

Oh: I guess it depends on how you actually define what is an unmanned air vehicle. They used to be called remote pilot vehicles. That’s where the term drones came from. You can date as far back as the World War II era.

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