UAV regler - USA tar føringen

Earlier this year, Congress passed and President Obama signed a new law instructing the Federal Aviation Administration to rewrite regulations and develop a blueprint to expand the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in the skies above the United States.

More recently, the FAA in May completed a revision of its regulations intended to ease and expedite the process for law enforcement certification for flying UAVs as part of a series of milestones under the new law. Ultimately, the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 calls on the FAA to fully integrate unmanned systems, including for commercial use, into the national airspace by Sept. 2015.

The law seeks to capitalize on the rapidly developing technology of unmanned systems following the value they demonstrated to the U.S. military in the fight against terrorism and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department of Homeland Security has used UAVs to patrol borders to curtail illegal immigration. Police officers and firefighters have seen the benefit of UAVs to carry out their respective duties.

The legislation could also expand the use of UAVs in numerous other areas ranging from agriculture to infrastructure monitoring and possibly even aviation cargo, and could be a boost to UAV and defense industries at a time of declining budgets at the Pentagon