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Businesses Have Various ‘Flight Plans’ for Commercial Drones

The federal government has cleared the way for businesses to legally operate small quadcopters and other drones in moneymaking activities.

The Federal Aviation Administration predicted that the number of small, commercial unmanned aircraft in U.S. airspace may swell to as many as 600,000 by this time next year. The FAA said that it had 20,000 applications for commercial drones.

“Six hundred thousand drones registered for commercial operation over the next year feels a little aggressive to me,” said Rob Benson, the newly named CEO for Qelzal Corp., a company in the EvoNexus incubator near University Towne Center. “However, there is a lot of interest.”

Benson was about to take part in an unmanned aircraft conference in Las Vegas, where one-quarter of the scheduled panel discussions covered business topics. “People are showing a strong interest in the business of flying drones,” he said.

The new FAA rules, effective Aug. 28, have many limits. For example, there is no blanket approval for commercial drones to fly at night.

Wireless Technology

Still, San Diego companies big and small stand to benefit.

Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM) recently announced that it teamed up with AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) to test how well a wireless communication technology called LTE might allow drones to fly beyond an operator’s line of sight. Their technical trial will evaluate what networks need to support drone operations.

Real economic value will come when the federal government lets pilots fly their machines beyond their line of sight, said Qelzal’s Benson.

So far, the FAA has not given blanket approval for flying a drone beyond the operator’s line of sight, though the federal agency has given certain companies special permission.

Qelzal is a startup that wants to deliver sense-and-avoid technology and other power-conserving technology to small aircraft.

Clearing the Path for Drones

Meanwhile, 5D Robotics of Carlsbad sees increased business ahead providing drone services and technology, particularly to industrial clients, said CTO David Bruemmer and co-worker John Montague.

“Utilities are a huge opportunity for us,” Bruemmer said.

An even bigger business opportunity, he said, would be the rollout of an extra-sensitive positioning technology able to beat GPS by determining locations to within 2 centimeters. Bruemmer estimated the resolution for GPS is 8 feet — and it’s worse in cities.

The system he has in mind would fit every lamppost in America with ultrawideband sensor technology — effectively creating pathways for drones to fly above roads and highways.

“I can’t think of a bigger market,” Bruemmer said when asked about the dollar value of such a proposal. “It impacts everything,” he said, including self-driving cars.

Environmental Surveys

Of course, working with new technology can quickly take a business into uncharted territory. Companies are making hypotheses and testing whether those hunches are right.

Downtown San Diego-based NWB Environmental Services LLC is one company evaluating drone technology. The business conducts biological and cultural resource surveys on properties to satisfy state and federal environmental laws prior to property development. By now, the company has several small drones in its fleet. An FAA Section 333 exemption allowed the company to operate the drones commercially, using licensed pilots, long before the commercial regulations went into effect on Aug. 28.

One issue that staff tackled in the spring was how it might better use drones to find desert tortoises — a threatened species — in the Mojave Desert. At first, NWB and its partner Wildlands Inc. thought a thermal-imaging camera might better find the animals. But an early test showed a conventional camera with a zoom lens was the better way to find tortoises.

Another big question NWB is trying to answer is whether a drone creates undue stress on an environment, or whether sending in a drone might be less stressful than sending in a human observer.

The new FAA rules that went into effect Aug. 28 are known as Part 107.

Under the new rules, would-be commercial drone operators may successfully pass an online test to get the government’s permission to fly.

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