Only Self-Awareness Can Keep Drones Out of Do Not Fly Zones 165
szczys writes: Chris Anderson is on the bleeding edge of the drone world, having founded 3D Robotics (drone manufacturer) and DIY Drones (enthusiast site). He takes on the issue of people flying drones where they shouldn't, and concludes that making drones self aware is the best solution. This isn't the "robots are trying to kill you" type of self awareness. Instead, it considers drone type, operator, and location, to establish if all those factors equate to a safe flight area. This is an important issue — in the last few months, there have been several stories about drones in places they should not have been. This included incidents like disrupting the efforts of airborne firefighting and interfering with a police manhunt.
On August 29, Skynet becomes self aware (Score:2)
Must. Not.
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The good news is skynet only has about 15 minutes of flight time for every 4 hours of recharging.
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Given the state of AI research, I don't think you have anything to worry about.
"The only way to keep drones out of no-fly zones is to solve the hardest problem ever." Well, that will certainly motivate them! Surely, now we'll finally see something resembling progress...
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Back when mere automated formation flying and object avoidance was scary...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJbtgKB3nok
Tiny grains of sand (Score:3)
No... (Score:1, Insightful)
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It's a felony to fly an airplane in the tall building.
Re:No... (Score:4, Informative)
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This is an educational problem -- people need to know there are places you're not allowed to fly
learning that you will go to jail for a long time is a powerful incentive
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My RC quadcopter (or "Drone") to the uninformed. Might, and I mean MIGHT weigh an ounce with the battery. An anemic puppy could destroy it in seconds. It carries no cameras and if I stop giving it real time instructions it will pretty much fall from the sky.
This is the "drone" that has fallen from the sky and landed on my cat and did not even wake the cat.
Yet I cannot take it to the local park because it is within a couple miles of an airport. This thing couldn't even make it to the airport on a single
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You can put a big fucking sticker on the drone, that's how. A sticker that has to be removed before it will fly.
Require licensing (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure you can arrest and charge someone for breaking the rules but the vast majority of these cases are people not knowing any better.
Then when they get arrested they will be educated. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. This is an excellent example of why that has to be the case.
If these drones are interfering with full-sized aircraft, penalties don't prevent the danger presented by naive operators.
I think it would not be very hard to make it abundantly clear that manslaughter charges could be applied.
In other cases of public assets like the airwaves we have required licensing to utilize them. Ham radio operators are a good example. I see no reason why we shouldn't require a license to operate a drone in any public airspace in a similar manner.
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Owning land does not mean you own an infinite amount of airspace above it. Up to a range of 500' (limits vary by country) is considered to be "your" airspace. Space above that is considered to be much the same as a public highway. This is why it's not possible to sue plane operators for trespass if they're flying over you.
So as long as you're within your airspace and not using your drone to spy on your neighbors, you'll probably be fine.
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That does eliminate the justification for a seller demanding to see a licence from the buyer. The buyer might be operating in private airspace.
Much like you don't need a license to operate a motor vehicle on your own land.
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You don't actually need a license to buy a motor vehicle either. As for operation, be very very careful with that. It varies a great deal from place to place. In some places it's so ambiguous that if a cop does show up you're relying greatly on his personal interpretation of the law.
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This is an excellent example of why "well how the hell was I supposed to know that was illegal" should be a perfectly valid defence. No person can possibly memorize every single law in the books, much less actually utilize that knowledge in decision-making, so if breaking nonsensical laws out of ignorance is a felony, then the only way to avoid becoming
Ignorance cannot be a valid defense (Score:2)
This is an excellent example of why "well how the hell was I supposed to know that was illegal" should be a perfectly valid defence.
Really? You think "I didn't know it was against the law to murder someone" should be a valid defense? If ignorance was a valid defense then anyone could claim ignorance of any crime to get away with it. You CANNOT have ignorance of the law be a valid defense and have a working legal system.
The point of law isn't to throw as many people in prisons as possible.
Who said it was? The point of licensing is to prevent problems before they occur. We require people get formal training to operate other types of vehicles primarily for safety reasons. The fact that the operator isn
Built-in safety. (Score:2)
Ham radio operators are a good example.
Yet, any customer can buy cheap radio equipement (e.g.: Wifi dongle) that are designed to be used by untrained end-users and are designed to only operate within safe limits (and only limits on wavelenghts they are allowed to.
People with license can buy separate, more expensive hardware specifically designed to allow access to other frequencies. (Or at least a hacker need to reflash firmware, e.g.: to allow using EU-only Wifi frequencies inside the US).
But there's no such thing as a safety aware drone - unli
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Hence TFA subject (Score:2)
Hence the whole idea of trying to put as much IA in drone as possible so they could themself identify no fly zones when their clueless user cannot, and refuse to go there if instructed (which is a complex problem and require massive advances IA).
That would be similar to how most Wifi dongle out-of-the-box will only operate on authorised frequencies (and would require some firmware reflashing to operate on other frequencies outside the authorised one, if the hardware is ever capable of so).
(Luckily for Wifi
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It's illegal to kill people, so clearly murder no longer happens either.
drone on (Score:2)
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Indeed. Drones is just the moral panic du jour. If they were still called "model aircraft" like they were for the last few decades, there wouldn't be all this irrationality about them.
Yeah, right ... (Score:2)
So the thing is this seems to rely on people giving a crap, and going to great pains to implement these features.
It assumes voluntary compliance ... at which point you can pretty much conclude it's meaningless crap.
Drones and Morons (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever I read an article about "drones" they are invariable talking about radio controlled quad copters. They're not autonomous, they're controlled by individuals. People have been flying radio controlled planes as a hobby for 60+ years. We don't have a drone problem, we have a moron problem.
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We don't have a drone problem, we have a moron problem.
What is your solution? Alien overlords? Just curious.
Re:Drones and Morons (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't have a drone problem, we have a fear mongering society problem. A society that demonizes things out of hysteria. A society that wants feel good knee-jerk reaction legislation (that IMO is often counter productive).
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We don't have a drone problem, we have a fear mongering society problem. A society that demonizes things out of hysteria. A society that wants feel good knee-jerk reaction legislation (that IMO is often counter productive).
I find your comment offensive. Why isn't there a law against that!
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When firefighting aircraft can't carry out their missions safely because of drones in the area, we've got a drone problem. (I'm not second-guessing anybody with the guts to fly low and slow over a big fire that causes very turbulent air.) When there's a danger of a drone collision that could damage a manned aircraft, we've got a drone problem. When there's the possibility that a drone will fall on somebody or something with enough force to cause damage, we have at least a potential drone problem.
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GPS waypoint autopilot has been a thing for so long it's already changed names at least twice. It used to be called Ardupilot but it's something else now. Both for wheeled, quadcopter, and traditional planes in the consumer realm. Under $200 , even.
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They are autonomous if you lose RF. You really think you're in control if the TX loses connection or worse... bind, to the RX? If one does think so, that person needs to RTFM.
This is a great example of 2 communities coming together with 2 different perspectives: considering the revolution in the past 4 yrs.... traditional R/C hobbyist take 2.4FHSS RF for granted (cause they're in some AMA sanctioned open field and FHSS works great... most of the time) and drone pilots take GPS for granted (since it appears
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My radio controlled quad is fully autonymous. The two things are far from mutually exclusive. It is more than capable of following a pre-defined fly path all on its own after takeoff, including landing. Its actually capable of taking off as well, but thats software disabled for safety.
I'd be willing to bet that other than carrying missiles, you couldn't even figure out what differences there are in capabilities of the software.
I've flown R/C for 30 years almost.
It is a moron problem, and the problem is t
Better solution (Score:2)
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What about making the humans who are piloting them self-aware?
insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results
in this case, expecting humans to be intelligent is pretty darned insane
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What about expecting the machines that humans make to be intelligent?
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Fine by me if authorities choose to frag these (Score:2)
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If they can forcibly stop a car from entering an active crime scene or fire area, they can do this.
A car entering a fire area is an object the size of, well, a car, traveling on a two-dimensional surface via limited routes. Pretty easy to block those routes to keep them out.
A quadcopter is a device with a size on the order of a football, traveling in a three-dimensional space without roads. How do you forcibly block them from entering? "Under the Dome" is fiction, by the way.
Last I checked authorities had guns, (Score:2)
The opposite (Score:2)
Won't fix anything. (Score:2)
I'll give a self aware drone about 5 minutes before someone hacks their bios to load Cyanogen Drone OS because fuck you don't tell me what to do with my property even if it's violating someone else's property.
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I'll give a self aware drone about 5 minutes before someone hacks their bios to load Cyanogen Drone OS because fuck you don't tell me what to do with my property even if it's violating someone else's property.
Personally, I find the idea of equipping drones above a certain class with a receiver such that it refuses to fly (or returns to launch area to land) if it detects a specific beacon signal to be acceptable, with the idea that it's on the operator's head if they hack their drone so it ignores the signal.
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if it detects a specific beacon signal
"If you call within the next ten minutes, we'll double your order. That's right, not one, but two 'no-fly beacons' for the price of one (just pay additional shipping and handling)."
with the idea that it's on the operator's head if they hack their drone so it ignores the signal.
It's already on the operator's head if they fly stupidly. Will adding another law stop someone who is already breaking the law?
And goody goody, /. is playing games with the "disable ads" system again.
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"If you call within the next ten minutes, we'll double your order. That's right, not one, but two 'no-fly beacons' for the price of one (just pay additional shipping and handling)."
Enjoy your $1k fine from the FCC. Existing law, not new law.
It's already on the operator's head if they fly stupidly. Will adding another law stop someone who is already breaking the law?
I wasn't adding another law. I was proposing adding a physical system that attempts to stop someone from breaking the law, perhaps unknowingly.
I remember reading about somebody who, in the midst of confusing construction markings and detours, made a wrong turn and committed felony trespassing (mail-in ticket ~$100). He didn't figure out that it was a felony because that bit of the ticket was messy and smudged until it came up in a background che
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Enjoy your $1k fine from the FCC. Existing law, not new law.
I was attempting to point out in a humorous way how this beacon system could be abused by those who wanted to, not specifically that they'd sell them a 3AM on a cable channel. Yes, selling them would be illegal, already. Distributing information on how to take a Baofeng $40 radio and turn it into a beacon transmitter is less illegal. And websites with information on how to clip the beacon receiver antenna would be legion.
I wasn't adding another law. I was proposing adding a physical system
Which would require a new law to force manufacturers to include a beacon receiver, an
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I was attempting to point out in a humorous way how this beacon system could be abused by those who wanted to, not specifically that they'd sell them a 3AM on a cable channel. Yes, selling them would be illegal, already. Distributing information on how to take a Baofeng $40 radio and turn it into a beacon transmitter is less illegal. And websites with information on how to clip the beacon receiver antenna would be legion.
Then the drone doesn't take off because it's not getting the signal for it's control system properly... But like I said, you clip the antenna or otherwise disable the system, the results are on your head.
As for the beacons, who's talking about selling them? Operating them without a license is illegal, and you're broadcasting right where you are...
You mean like when you point a gun at someone and tell them to give you all their money, the little pop-up window that appears in your line of sight that says "you're about to commit a felony -- click OK or CANCEL"? I'm sorry, but it just isn't feasible to put physical barriers in front of everyone who is about to commit a felony that require them to explicitly acknowledge their desire to do so.
...And you completely ignored my previous paragraph, not to mention the 'like some other posters have presented' (I should have said proposed), in order to creat
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Then the drone doesn't take off because it's not getting the signal for it's control system properly...
Wait a minute there. The proposal was for a beacon to be installed in places where there was a no-fly zone, like airports or at wildfire TFR sites. Now you say that if there ISN'T a valid beacon signal received then the drone won't take off. So that requires beacons to be EVERYWHERE that drones CAN fly -- which is a hell of a lot of places.
As for the beacons, who's talking about selling them?
1. If they are going to be installed someplace, someone has to sell them.
2. You replied to my fake voiceover for an infomercial selling them, so I was talking about it
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Wait a minute there. The proposal was for a beacon to be installed in places where there was a no-fly zone, like airports or at wildfire TFR sites. Now you say that if there ISN'T a valid beacon signal received then the drone won't take off. So that requires beacons to be EVERYWHERE that drones CAN fly -- which is a hell of a lot of places.
Never heard of combined antennas?
Your chance of getting caught is infinitely small.
People who operate cell phone jammers are routinely caught.
You're saying that if there isn't a police officer standing there telling you "don't rob that guy", you shouldn't be charged with a felony when you do it.
No, actually, I'm not. I'm saying that you shouldn't be able to commit felony trespass by accidentally walking/driving somewhere. Not a violent felony like robbery. Of course, this is the second time I point this out to you.
To put it in context, if there were zones where robbery was perfectly legal, and zones where it isn't, then I'd want them marked somehow. Given that *most* areas are illegal, it's logical to m
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Self-awareness to read maps? (Score:2)
Self-awareness is the last thing we need from a drone. How hard is it to write an algorithm that simply checks current location and current trajectory, against inter-sections of no-fly zones? Sure you need a map database, but even self-aware systems need to check against some data source. Not even self-aware humans can't guess right as to whether they are in a place that should be a no fly zone and why flying in certain locations are bad, based on recent news reports.
I am guessing Chris is making the proble
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Correct me if I'm wrong but myriad commercial GPS navigation systems will alert a pilot when going into a no-fly area. Since all the increased regulation since 9/11 I'd expect that to be a major selling point.
I suspect so, though even if they don't Google has demonstrated a solution which detects no-fly zones: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]
other way around - geofence the drones in (Score:3)
I hate to say this, but we probably need to do it the other way around, and geofence the drones in designated areas for aircraft to avoid, much like model aircraft, high-power model rockets, etc. It's the way the military operates drones. They are only permitted to operate within Restricted or Warning areas or along designated corridors that are marked on VFR charts and listed in the NOTAMS.
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Possible solution? (Score:3)
How about a two-part solution?
First, design a "Go Away!" transmitter. These could be deployed in security areas, wildfire areas, and where ever they are needed. Might use normal WiFi bands with a digital code.
Second, require that all drones be equipped with a receiver for these "Go Away!" transmitters. Reception of such a signal would cause the drone to reverse course and fly away until the signal was no longer received.
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Immediately followed by drone users disabling the "Go Away!" receivers because it's become impossible to use a drone with that receiver active.
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Or just enable multicast where a 1st responder can plop a 5W transmitter on the ground and broadcast "a fence signal".
Remember, loudest mouth wins in the field of RF.
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Second, require that all drones be equipped
Sorry you failed right there.
The government has so far not once succeeded in being able to restrict things by requiring people or vendors to do something. Until a day when every single item that comes in from overseas is checked by customs against a whitelist, and every single vendor in the USA is subject to periodic inspection of their designs you will not succeed by having the government "require" anything.
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How about a two-part solution?
First, design a "Go Away!" transmitter. These could be deployed in security areas, wildfire areas, and where ever they are needed. Might use normal WiFi bands with a digital code.
Second, require that all drones be equipped with a receiver for these "Go Away!" transmitters. Reception of such a signal would cause the drone to reverse course and fly away until the signal was no longer received.
Third, attack drones that take down the ones who don't 'go away'.
I for one would buy popcorn to see some drone wars :-)
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No, although drones big enough to fly out of line-of-sight must have SOME way to inform the operator where they are, and GPS is pretty darned cheap these days. It would take less processing power to retain its flight track over an hour or so than it would to record HD video, which many of them already can do.
But my suggestion is that when the drone detect the "Go away" signal, it reverse course until the signal is no longer detectable. The "Go away" transmitter should be pretty low-powered and aimed up; p
Also at sporting events (Score:2)
So far, no one has had bodily harm from someone doing stupid things like this but, like everything else, it will happen and then the shit will hit the fan (or blood will hit the drone blades as the case may be).
I, for one, welcome our... (Score:2)
new, plastic propellered, human dependent, man toy, overlords.
(Every /. summary about AI or robots should have an automatic first post with this subject line. Then we could compete to fill in the funniest description. That would really make /. fun again. I know somebody has gotta be able to come up with something better than my lame attempt.)
The best way (Score:2)
I would reformulate that... (Score:2)
... Only shotguns can keep drones out of do not fly zones.
Bleeding edge representative? (Score:2)
If someone is on the bleeding edge of this industry, and respected by this industry, how the hell do we take the industry seriously? No one with a clue will claim "self-awareness" as a goal for industry. Does *anyone* in this industry have a clue that isn't superficial knowledge of flight and 3d printers?
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Interesting that people, even enthusiasts, might tolerate aircraft that won't fly in areas someone else designates and radio receivers that won't receive frequencies that someone else decides are off-limits but not guns that won't shoot inside of banks and courthouses (aside from the impracticality of that).
Which amendment was it that covered the right to fly drones wherever you feel like it again?
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Which amendment was it that covered the right to fly drones wherever you feel like it again?
Neither the constitution nor the bill of rights is meant to be or contain an exhaustive list of your rights. Rather, the default position is supposed to be that you have a right to do something unless it interferes with someone else's well-being. The bill of rights does not define "arms", which would obviously include even weapons designed not to fire within certain locations.
I agree that such a law would interfere with the right to keep and bear arms, but don't get all misty-eyed over what is after all jus
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I am in no way claiming that flying a drone is a right, just wish people would stop asking where in the Constitution a right is.
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So basically have all technology set to be controlled by the government just in case they need to?
Wow, can we extend this to the internet, cell phones, cars, news reports, and everything else? That way they can just turn off anything they disagree with.
Sorry, but in this day and age there isn't a government on the planet I'd trust with that, because they'd abuse the shit out of it. In case you haven't noticed, they're pretty much all willing to be self-serving lying bastards if it suits them.
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So basically have all technology set to be controlled by the government just in case they need to?
so basically you've decided to argue with something that nobody said
He's actually quite right, and pointing out an obvious side-effect of any "no-fly" system. Where do you think the "no-fly zones" come from? It's not happy little elves working in a North Pole workshop. They come from -- the FAA. "Government". Sometimes at the request of -- other government agencies (USFS, for forest fire TFRs, e.g.) or sometimes corporations (TFRs around sporting events.) If this system was implemented, what do you think it would take to ground all cooperating systems? Right -- one TFR fro
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So you can't expect something like a car navigation system or a tom tom to have a clue about those areas, because they probably never get updated.
It would have to be a live "tell me no-fly zones near me" web-like or continuous broadcast radio/satellite s
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If Joe Schmoe is going to get his panties in a bunch if you fly a drone over his property he can buy a no-fly broadcaster of his own. Sounds like a win-win.
Technical solution to social problem (Score:3)
I think this could be reasonably handled with geofences.
I'm very dubious that would work. It's a technical solution to a social problem and an impractical one at that. Technical solutions to social problems rarely work. In this case the appropriate answer would probably be some sort of drone pilot license to purchase and/or operate. Operation outside of private property without a license results in jail time and/or fines just like with an automobile or ham radio.
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>> SoCs with GPS
GPS is so trivial to spoof and forge that it should never be used to implement "no fly" features in drones.
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>> SoCs with GPS
GPS is so trivial to spoof and forge that it should never be used to implement "no fly" features in drones.
the radio signals used to control drones are trivial to spoof and forge, with your logic they should all be grounded until they can be 100% proven secure
Re:GPS fencing is probably not a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
GPS is 1575mhz, which is affected by line-of-sight. If you don't have a clear line-of-sight, your location will be off. Inside my house, my location sometimes bounces around by 2 miles on my multirotor.
Outside its affected by anything that refracts, diffracts or reflects radio waves. IE power lines, buildings, anything really. Power lines near my drone put it 10 feet to the opposite side.
Or if you really want to affect it, just cup your hands around it. Doesn't take much to interfere with it.
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So far the only argument I see against geofencing is folks don't want it cause of the "limitations" of flying: freedom over their device and that is it. Obviously no one understands the concept and the current software solutions are so buggy (yes!)--so it all gets thrown under the "geofencing doesn't work" bin.
How many "pros" are flying over airports? 10 (A: yes), 100, 1000? Daily (no way)?
How many no fly zones (NFZ) would be needed? 1000 (A: yes), 1000000, 1 million?
How many drones are being flown in a pub
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You have a shitty GPS. Stop buying bargain basement stuff and it won't be such a noticable issue.
mine never goes more than about 20-30 meters when its got a link, inside. On most days, its pretty much rock solid.
I've never seen it react oddly when flying near over lines.
mine isn't special, its just not an $8 one. Survey grade GPSes won't move more than a meter in far worse conditions.
You can put the GPS in my boat in a metal storage building and it will still pin point the boat to the storage building it
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What you're describing is counter to the experiences of the hundreds of millions of people who regularly use GPS receivers inside buildings and in nearly enclosed metal boxes traveling at various rates of speed through extremely multi-path plagued environments.
You really need to look at fixing your specific setup because the problem is not that bad for anybody else. You likely have an extremely shitty GPS receiver, a poor power supply to the receiver, or crazy interference coming from something else on your
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Most of the people violating restricted airspace seem to be unaware of it. GPS would be fine as an advisory measure. If the GPS was spoofed, it would prove intent.
Re:GPS fencing is probably not a bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
What industry? My drone is fully autonomous and yet home made and open source. GPS fencing isn't as trivial as you think. There are literally millions of technical no fly zones and that doesn't even begin to consider transient zones like during fire fighting exercises.
GPS fencing is not only unenforceable but also technically infeasible.
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Of course, so is requiring those making regulations to take the ridiculousness of their position into account.
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even begin to consider transient zones like during fire fighting exercises.
The drones people are concerned about have to have computers and radios. I prefer 'technical' solutions rather than simply making flying a drone in a no-fly zone a felony.
As such, I suggest having a site such that the drone controls can pull the latest 'no-fly' listing rather easily from. That takes care of areas like Groom Lake. It can even catch most 'temporary' no-fly zones.
For the temporary, frequently updated no-fly zones, I suggest adding or dual-purposing a radio on drones, then whoever is declari
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As such, I suggest having a site such that the drone controls can pull the latest 'no-fly' listing rather easily from.
Computer and radio do NOT imply internet connection.
If users then disable said systems, NOW you can consider hitting them with a felony.
Why? It's not like it's currently legal to fly in no-fly zones. Why should another law make it any different?
Also while we're at it let's compare it to other government mandated software that has been forced on the world:
- We have eliminated piracy by blocking the use of certain software - nope.
- We have prevented encryption from falling into "enemy" hands using export laws - nope.
- We have successfully geo-fenced media software by controlling it at the so
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Computer and radio do NOT imply internet connection.
Well, it's a good thing I didn't specify an internet site, now does it? An internet version does make some sense, no-fly zones don't change that often.
Why? It's not like it's currently legal to fly in no-fly zones. Why should another law make it any different?
Note that I'm not proposing another law so much as making it harder to ignore the law. I know that ignorance isn't an excuse, but I don't like making committing a felony by not paying attention easy.
What you're effectively saying is that we can do the equivalent of eliminating computer based crime by having the government mandate which software we use. It won't work. Ever.
False equivalency.
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Well, it's a good thing I didn't specify an internet site, now does it? An internet version does make some sense, no-fly zones don't change that often.
No fly zones may no change often but when they do change they are highly transient not known in advance, and not staying around for long (e.g. firefighting, events etc). That's a key problem right there.
False equivalency.
I compared your government regulation requiring a vendor to do something specific with software in drones to government regulation requiring a computer vendor to do something specific with software in drones. It doesn't work. If you think this is a false equivalency or if you have an idea of how it would wor
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No fly zones may no change often but when they do change they are highly transient not known in advance, and not staying around for long (e.g. firefighting, events etc). That's a key problem right there.
The vast majority of No-fly zones are highly static. Go back to my original proposal - it amounts to:
Permanent no-fly zones: Updated through standard data systems.
Transients: Beacons are placed to act as 'keep aways'.
. If you think this is a false equivalency or if you have an idea of how it would work then I'm all ears.
1. You're proposing 'eliminating' computer crime. I believe that I've only ever framed it in terms of 'reduce'.
2. I'm not mandating some specific computer package or implementation. Merely a (probably already existing) machine-readable description of no-fly zones, and some standard for b
Get Over Yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you feel about over flights from:
Helicopters (Private, commercial, ambulance, police, military)
Light aircraft( hot air balloons, paragliders, hang gliders, ultralights)
Private aircraft.
Commercial/military jets.
Imaging satellites.
You don't think twice about any of these aircraft, and many are indeed photographing you and your property(Google and government imaging, property appraiser aerial photography...). But a $800 toy helicopter draws a knee jerk reaction? Get over yourself!
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Winged aircraft are required to be at least 500 feet over my house. Imaging satellites can't establish a stable orbit at 100 feet. Helicopters are required to maintain position and altitude such that they can land safely with an engine failure. In other words, none of them are going to be within 100 feet of my property, or even 100 feet of airspace I have a definite legal claim to.
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So tell me again what do you fear? This year more people have been killed standing on he ground getting hit by a plane flown by a licensed insured well trained and certified pilot, than people have been injured by drones.
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All people will do is unplug the GPS. Its an addon on most hobby drones anyways (Naza and Pixhawk).
And GPS for drones is not $5. Its not expensive, but its not $5 either. Try looking up M8n gps or NEO-7m
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Photonic fences [intellectualventures.com] as used against mosquyito could be adapted for enforcing drone-less zones.
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The Nissan GTR does this in Japan. On normal roads it's speed-limited to 180km/h but if you enter a racetrack area it removes all restrictions automatically.
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But is that blacklisting the rest of the world (but in millions of pieces), or whitelisting a few racetracks? The drone problem is far more akin to the former.
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Proof read...I should do it more often.
Push notifications via cell, aircraft transponders (Score:2)
OR, every drone would need to access the database wirelessly in real time to know where it can or can't go. So to be effective, in the case of a man hunt, the police would have to constantly update the database with locations and the drone would have to be continually querying the DB for prohibited locations.
And local government has the ability to push notifications to subscribed cell phones regarding local emergency alerts.
Also aircraft have transponders identifying their position, drones could listen for these transponders.
The potential solutions can be far simpler than you suggest.
3. If you ditch the Fire and Police nonsense ...
And this is the attitude that will get drones heavily restricted. Like drivers of autos you *must* yield to and stay out of the way of emergency services.
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The article is about 3DR, who sells the Pixhawk (open source hardware flight controller). The hardware is open source. The software is open source (Missionplanner).
If the developers made airport no-fly zones un-fly-able, it would be trivial for the community to override. Also the developers would lose support. Currently Missionplanner does display airports, but it is for information purposes only (does not inhibit flying).
Also, this would only work if GPS was enabled. If it was disabled, or removed entirely
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Perhaps there is something applicable here: https://notams.aim.faa.gov/#Ne... [faa.gov]