Drones - ADS-B as sense-and-avoid - And other things

This unsexy technology is set to revolutionize the drone industry

Better, smaller and cheaper situational awareness will fuel the next leap forward in the commercial drone industry. 

 The idea of skies filled with autonomous flying robots that change the way people interact with the world has grown in popularity amongst futurists and entrepreneurs alike. Largely absent from the public conversation is a discussion about the inherent shortcomings in unmanned aerial systems: namely that without a human pilot aerial vehicles are flying blind.

Autonomous drones can fly extremely well, but they lack perception having zero awareness of other aircraft operating in their immediate vicinity. This makes the idea of dozens (hundreds, or even thousands) of commercial drones navigating the same airspace while avoiding obstacles like planes and power lines unfeasible. Factor in that the majority of aircrafts in the sky these days are manned and it becomes not only unrealistic but also potentially dangerous.

But, this could be the year that all that change thanks to two decidedly unsexy technologies that are quietly undergoing mini-revolutions of their own. Neither is brand new, but both are falling precipitously in cost and size. These new breeds of radar and electronic systems could transform both the aviation industry and open the door to a genuine commercial drone revolution.

The first technology, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (or ADS-B), is something most people only hear about after, say, an airliner vanishes like Malaysia Airlines 370 did last year. 

ADS-B is a pricey, and often heavy, on-board aircraft tracking technology that not only determines an aircraft's own position in space via satellites, but also periodically broadcasts its position and direction. Each broadcast can be picked up not only by air traffic controller towers, but also critically by other aircraft in the area. The automated nature of ADS-B lends itself particularly well to robotic drones since computers are well-suited for the multitasking needed to track multiple aircraft at one time.

Transportation authorities are slowly but surely moving toward making ADS-B an industry standard for all manned commercial aviation. Currently, ADS-B isn't required on all aircraft. The still-missing Malaysia Airlines jet was not equipped with the technology, while GermanWings flight 9525 was.  

In the U.S. plans are in place to add the technology to all flights as part of the FAA's NextGen strategy to upgrade national airspace due to the enhanced safety it imparts. 

Small and inexpensive ADS-B units don't just have major implications for general aviation but for unmanned navigation and guidance as well. If ADS-B components can be made small, lightweight and-most importantly-inexpensive, they could become industry standard for commercial drones as well.

Enter Google which recently announced that its engineers have set out to develop small, lightweight ADS-B units that cost less than $2,000. "We think that-and we are going to do this-we will head-down the trajectory of putting into the marketplace really, really low-cost ADS-B solutions," Dave Vos, the director of Google's Project Wing, said during the International Civil Aviation Organization in March. Project Wing is Google's latest initiative aimed at developing viable commercial delivery drones.

Lightweight, sub-$2,000 ADS-B units would create situational awareness for drones allowing them to fly in shared airspace with both unmanned aviation and manned aviation as well as existing air traffic control systems.

Similarly, a company out of Bellevue, Wa. called Echodyne is developing a way to incorporate the same kind of sophisticated scanning beam radar used by fighter jets-to scan and track objects-into the average quadrotor. The company has found a way to replace the typically bulky apparatus that directs radio waves-a mechanism known as a phase shifter-and replace it with a novel new device made from highly-tuned synthetic materials known as metamaterials.

Echodyne has already been able to demonstrate a small electronically scanning radar on a quadrotor drone, one capable of tracking an individual on the ground or avoiding obstacles during flight, but is still prototyping.

Echodyne's CTO Tom Driscoll says he is confident that he and his team can get the size down to roughly that of an iPhone6 Plus and the weight down to less than one pound-plenty small for most commercially available drones on the market today. Moreover, the cost will be such that commercial drones could come standard with sophisticated scanning array radar. "Our canned answer is that Echodyne will be providing radar solutions in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars," Driscoll tells Fortune. "But we can feasibly see a sub-$1,000 system."

A 360-degree spatial awareness at that price point could-either alongside ADS-B or independent of it-provide the "sense-and-avoid" capability that drones today sorely lack.

FAA program tests drones flying beyond pilot's line-of-sight

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has announced tests of drones in urban areas as well as outside the pilot's line-of-sight, possibly paving the way for operations such as the aerial delivery of packages as proposed by companies like Amazon.com.

FAA administrator Michael P. Huerta announced Wednesday a new Pathfinder Program under which the agency has partnered with three U.S. companies to explore three key types of unmanned operations.

PrecisionHawk, a drone manufacturer, will be surveying crops in rural areas using unmanned aircraft flying outside of the pilot's direct vision, while BNSF Railroad will test the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to inspect their rail infrastructure beyond visual line-of-sight in isolated areas, Huerta said at a conference of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

News network CNN will be testing drones for news gathering in urban areas.

The FAA and Department of Transportation proposed in February new rules that would allow companies to fly drones of less than 55 pounds at an altitude of up to 500 feet and at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour during daylight hours. The drone must be flown by a licensed drone operator and kept within visual line-of-sight at all times.

Huerta described the proposed rules as containing "commonsense provisions," like not flying near airports, at night, or more than 500 feet off the ground.

While the FAA addresses over 4,000 comments on the proposal before finalizing the rule, which would take time, it is meanwhile looking for other ways to expand the use of unmanned aircraft.

"We anticipate receiving valuable data from each of these trials that could result in FAA-approved operations in the next few years," Huerta said.

The FAA also released at the conference a smartphone app, called B4UFLY, that users can use to determine whether there are any restrictions or requirements in effect at the location where they want to fly their UAS. The FAA is inviting volunteers to test the app, with plans to release to about 1,000 beta testers. It will be available on iOS first with an Android version to follow.