The Amazon Prime Air Drone was on display at the 2022 Commercial UAV Expo. | Credit: The Robot Report

I had the opportunity to attend the Commercial UAV show in Las Vegas earlier this month, and it was interesting to see the latest in commercial drone technology.

On the second day of the conference, David Boulter, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Vice President of Flight Program Operations, gave the keynote speech. In his talk, Boulter said that the FAA is now putting more attention on meeting deadlines. This is important to vendors who require action from the FAA in order to commercialize their solutions.

The operational side of the FAA has historically been good at meeting deadlines, but now the regulatory side has the same expectations.

During the waiver period for new rules, especially for the recent remote ID project, the organization has learned a lot about soliciting feedback from a large set of users. The FAA wants to change how the UAS beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) rules are implemented and use new methods to certify, track and enforce the new rules.

When evaluating the safety of drone operations, the FAA considers the full spectrum of potential hazards. He said it was clear that rules for operations in urban centers can be different from rules for operations in rural or unpopulated areas.

Boulter said that starting with a rule that already exists and making an exception from that rule seems to work better. From there the organization will attempt to make a template for exceptions.

The organization would much rather give permission for operations than deny them, but they have to prioritize the safety of the general public.

Also during the keynote, the news came that Matternet is getting a license so they can legally fly their M2 drone in the US. The new license enables the Matternet drone to fly over populated areas and over people. This will now enable the drones to be used for package delivery to homes.

The Matternet M2 autonomous drone can carry payloads of up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) over distances of up to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). | Credit: Matternet

This sets the precedence for the other drone manufacturers to follow, so we can expect there to be more type certifications in the future.

On the Commercial UAV show expo floor, there were a number of drone delivery solutions. The most notable was the presence of Amazon Prime Air, showing off a static model of its delivery drone.

The Amazon Prime Air MK27-2 is the fourth generation of Amazon’s air delivery drone. | Credit: Amazon

The Amazon Prime Air drone is unique in its configuration and kinematics. At the core of the drone’s design is a hexacopter with four angled motors (for stable hover vectoring) and two straight-mounted motors for horizontal flight using the fixed wings for lift.

The other notable keynote was a panel discussion with the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Advisory and Rulesmaking Committee (ARC). The committee recently finished its initial preparation of a draft of operational rules for BVLOS operations in the US.

These new rules now enter a feedback period, managed by the FAA, of six to nine months. During this time, the public can comment on the proposed rules. After that, the FAA will take the feedback, revise the draft and eventually bring the BVLOS rules and certification process into operation. This will occur in the next 12-24 months.

Jay Merkle from the FAA leads the panel discussion with subcommittee leaders from the ARC committee. | Credit: The Robot Report

In the meantime, drone companies can operate BVLOS under waivers. Use cases such as long infrastructure (i.e. pipelines and power lines) inspection are the early markets where BVLOS is already in operation, given that these flights are typically away from human-populated areas.

Walking through the expo floor populated with wares from more than 230 vendors, there were a couple of obvious trends in drone design.

Drones are being used by police departments to map crime scenes. Attendees at the show had the opportunity to watch a live crime scene mapping demo after the expo floor closed on Thursday evening, presented by Sundance Media Group. Out in the convention center parking lot, a model lay motionless on the ground, like a corpse. A drone was then flown over and around the crime scene to acquire a series of images which can later be stitched together using photogrammetry software to create an accurate 3D representation of the scene. This data is now acceptable in court when questions are raised about a crime.

Sundance Media Group presented a CSI crime scene demo outside in the casino parking lot, simulating (with a live human model as the corpse) how drones are being used to accurately map crime scenes today. | Credit: The Robot Report

Here’s a video of a walkthrough of the 3D data captured by the drone. (NOTE: this is a live model, although the image maybe be graphic)

Mike Oitzman is Editor of WTWH's Robotics Group and founder of the Mobile Robot Guide. Oitzman is a robotics industry veteran with 25-plus years of experience at various high-tech companies in the roles of marketing, sales and product management. He can be reached at [email protected]

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