[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JANUARY 21, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-1
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ERIC SWALWELL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARC A. VEASEY, TEXAS
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan PAUL TONKO, New York
STEVE KNIGHT, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
C O N T E N T S
January 21, 2015
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Acting Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 12
Witnesses:
Dr. Ed Waggoner, Director, Integrated Systems Research Program,
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, NASA
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 16
Mr. James Williams, Manager, UAS Integration Office, Aviation
Safety Organization, FAA
Oral Statement............................................... 28
Written Statement............................................ 30
Dr. John Lauber, Co-Chair, Committee on Autonomy Research for
Civil Aviation, National Research Council
Oral Statement............................................... 43
Written Statement............................................ 45
Mr. Brian Wynne, CEO and President, Association for Unmanned
Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI)
Oral Statement............................................... 64
Written Statement............................................ 66
Mr. Colin Guinn, CRO, 3D Robotics, Small UAV Coalition Member
Oral Statement............................................... 72
Written Statement............................................ 74
Dr. John R. Hansman, T. Wilson Professor of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Oral Statement............................................... 77
Written Statement............................................ 79
Discussion....................................................... 86
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Ed Waggoner, Director, Integrated Systems Research Program,
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, NASA................. 110
Mr. James Williams, Manager, UAS Integration Office, Aviation
Safety Organization, FAA....................................... 132
Dr. John Lauber, Co-Chair, Committee on Autonomy Research for
Civil Aviation, National Research Council...................... 159
Mr. Brian Wynne, CEO and President, Association for Unmanned
Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).......................... 171
Mr. Colin Guinn, CRO, 3D Robotics, Small UAV Coalition Member.... 182
Dr. John R. Hansman, T. Wilson Professor of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)...... 190
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Prepared statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice
Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 200
Prepared statement submitted by Representative Donna F. Edwards,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 201
Letters submitted by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 202
Letter submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 206
UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2015
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:35 p.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is
authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time.
Before we go forward, I want to mention that at the Ranking
Minority Member's request, we postponed the Science Committee's
organizational meeting until next Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., and I
ask unanimous consent to proceed with today's full Committee
hearing under the Rules of the House, and without objection, so
ordered. In other words, it is a little bit unusual for us to
have a hearing before we have organized, but at the ranking
member's request, we are going to postpone that organizational
hearing.
Welcome to today's hearing titled ``Unmanned Aircraft
Systems Research and Development.'' In front of you are packets
containing the written testimony, biography, and Truth in
Testimony disclosures for today's witnesses. I will recognize
myself for an opening statement and then recognize the ranking
member as well.
Today's hearing will examine research and development of
unmanned aircraft systems, also known as UAS. The hearing will
also provide an overview of how UAS research, development and
flight tests enable the integration of UAS into the National
Airspace System. I am going to use the term ``drone,'' since
that is how most people refer to them. However, the term
``unmanned aircraft systems'' is a more complete and accurate
term.
As the name suggests, UAS are complex systems made up of
not only of the aircraft but also the supporting ground, air,
and communications infrastructure. Drones come in a variety of
shapes and sizes and can carry out a wide range of missions. In
the past ten years, the public has become familiar with
military drones. Less discussed are civilian and nonmilitary
drones that have the ability to transform our everyday lives.
Commercial drones have the potential to carry out a wide range
of tasks across a broad range of sectors, including
agriculture, weather, energy, and disaster relief.
The Teal Group, an aerospace and defense industry market
intelligence firm, predicts America will spend over $11 billion
on UAS research, development, testing, evaluation and
procurement over the next decade. Total worldwide spending for
the same period is projected to be $91 billion.
In 2013, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International estimated that in the next ten years, over
100,000 U.S. jobs could be created as a result of UAS
integration into the National Airspace System. The report also
notes that continued delays in integrating drones in the
National Airspace System could cost the United States more than
$10 billion per year, or $27 million per day, in potential
earnings from investment in drones research and development.
In June 2014, the Department of Transportation Office of
Inspector General released an audit report that criticized the
FAA for being slow to integrate drones into the National
Airspace System. The audit concluded it is unlikely that
integration would be completed by the September 2015 deadline.
The FAA and NASA are working together to ensure safe and
successful integration of drones in the National Airspace
System. Some of the research being done seeks to ensure that
drones have the technologies necessary to avoid mid-air
collisions and the ability to be controlled from a central
location.
Drones can greatly benefit our society. Farmers can use
small drones to monitor their crops. Emergency responders could
move quickly to access disaster areas to search for survivors.
Energy companies could examine power lines and pipelines to
assess damage or prevent leaks.
UAS experimentation and testing at high schools and
universities might lead to technology breakthroughs as well as
inspire students to enter STEM fields. However, due to the
delays in integrating UAS into the National Airspace System,
the public is not yet allowed to use drones to do many of these
things.
Many other countries have developed a regulatory framework
supportive of drone use for such activities. Consequently, some
U.S.-based companies have moved research, development, testing
and high-paying jobs offshore.
Our goal today is to better understand the research
underway to overcome these barriers. We are particularly
interested in hearing how government-funded and private sector
UAS research and development informs, or should inform, the
integration of UAS into the National Airspace System.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Lamar S. Smith
Good afternoon and welcome to the Committee's first hearing of the
114th Congress. Today's hearing will examine research and development
of unmanned aircraft systems, also known as UAS. The hearing will also
provide an overview of how UAS research, development and flight tests
enable the integration of UAS into the National Airspace System.
I'm going to use the term ``drone,'' since that is how most people
refer to them. However, the term unmanned aircraft systems is a more
complete and accurate term. As the name suggests, UAS are complex
systems made up of not only the aircraft, but also the supporting
ground, air, and communications infrastructure.
Drones come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can carry out a
wide range of missions. In the past 10 years, the public has become
familiar with military drones. Less discussed are civilian and
nonmilitary drones that have the ability to transform our everyday
lives. Commercial drones have the potential to carry out a wide range
of tasks across a broad range of sectors, including agriculture,
weather, energy and disaster relief.
The Teal Group, an aerospace and defense industry market
intelligence firm, predicts America will spend over $11 billion dollars
on UAS research, development, testing, evaluation and procurement over
the next decade. Total worldwide spending for the same period is
projected to be $91 billion.
In 2013, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International
estimated that in the next ten years over 100,000 U.S. jobs could be
created as a result of UAS integration into the National Airspace
System. The report also notes that continued delays in integrating
drones in the National Airspace System could cost the U.S. more than
$10 billion per year, or $27.6 million per day, in potential earnings
from investment in drones' R&D.
In June 2014, the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector
General released an audit report that criticized the FAA for being slow
to integrate drones into the National Airspace System. The audit
concluded it's unlikely that integration would be completed by the
September 2015 deadline.
The FAA and NASA are working together to ensure safe and successful
integration of drones in the National Airspace System. Some of the
research being done seeks to ensure that drones have the technologies
necessary to avoid midair collisions and the ability to be controlled
from a central location.
Drones can greatly benefit our society. Farmers can use small
drones to monitor their crops. Emergency responders could more quickly
access disaster areas to search for survivors. Energy companies could
examine power lines and pipelines to assess damage or prevent leaks.
UAS experimentation and testing at high schools and universities
might lead to technology breakthroughs as well as inspire students to
enter STEM fields. However, due to the delays in integrating UAS into
the National Airspace System, the public is not yet allowed to use
drones to do any of these things.
Many other countries have developed a regulatory framework
supportive of drone use for such activities. Consequently, some U.S.-
based companies have moved research, development, testing and high
paying jobs offshore.
Our goal today is to better understand the research underway to
overcome these barriers. We are particularly interested in hearing how
government-funded and private sector UAS research and development
informs, or should inform, the integration of UAS into the National
Airspace System.
Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, but I
want to mention before recognizing the Ranking Member that we
are going to have a demonstration in a minute that to my
knowledge will be the first such demonstration in this
Committee room, and by the way, we had to get permission to fly
a drone in the Committee room as well, so the rules are still
pretty strict, but I appreciate the widespread interest in the
particular subject.
By the way, hardly a week goes by where the subject of
drones is not covered in some national publication or on the
front of the local newspaper or leads the news, so this is a
timely subject for lots and lots of reasons.
Also, without objection, I have a letter I would like to
put into the record from the National Association of Realtors
supporting what we are doing here today and supporting the
integration as well.
[The information appears in Appendix II]
Chairman Smith. With that, I will recognize the Ranking
Member, Ms. Bonamici, the gentlewoman from Washington, for her
comments.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I join you
in welcoming our distinguished panel of witnesses, and I look
forward to your testimony.
I want to state that Ranking Member Johnson is currently
detained at another committee and will join us shortly, as well
as some of our other Members are currently in other Committees.
The lack of other Members other than Representative Lofgren on
this side does not indicate a lack of interest in the issue
certainly.
And in the meantime, I want to start by thanking Chairman
Smith for calling this hearing on unmanned aircraft systems
research and development.
Because of the work in my home State of Oregon--it is close
to Washington, Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Smith. I am sorry. I was only one state off.
Ms. Bonamici. I do want to make that clear because my home
State of Oregon, I am particularly interested in hearing how we
can provide universities with the flexibility they need for
performing UAS testing in a safe and cost-effective manner, and
private sector developers with the regulatory certainty
necessary to support this growing industry.
So we, Oregon--that is why I needed to make this clear
because we are a participant in the Pan-Pacific UAS Test Range
Complex led by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and we have
three test sites in Oregon.
The potential benefits of UAS technology to agriculture,
environmental research, natural resource management and, I want
to add that the Chairman acknowledged some of those--emergency
disaster relief efforts--is really multiplied by expanding the
workforce focused on the development of new products, which is
creating, of course, new job opportunities throughout not only
Oregon but in other test areas as well.
So I do look forward to hearing how we in Congress and
across the Federal Government can help safely and responsibly
support the development of this exciting industry with so much
potential.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance
of my time.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
And I will now introduce our witnesses today. Our first
witness is Dr. Ed Waggoner. Dr. Waggoner is the Research
Director of NASA's Integrated Systems Research Program's
Office, which seeks to integrate NextGen technologies into
vehicle and operational systems. In this capacity, Dr. Waggoner
also oversees UAS integration into the National Airspace
System. Dr. Waggoner has worked for NASA since 1982, where he
began as a researcher in theoretical aerodynamics. We welcome
you.
Our second witness today is Mr. Jim Williams. Mr. Williams
is Manager of FAA's UAS Integration Office. As such, he is
responsible for coordinating FAA's efforts to integrate UAS
into the National Airspace System through rulemaking,
standardization, and research and development. Before working
on UAS, Mr. Williams served as the Director of FAA's
Engineering Services and as the Director of the Air Traffic
Control Communications Services Directorate. Mr. Williams
received his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering.
Our third witness today is Dr. John Lauber. Dr. Lauber was
a Co-chair on the National Research Council's Committee on
Autonomy Research for Civil Aviation. Dr. Lauber is now a
private consultant, and he has previously served as Airbus's
Senior Vice President of Product Safety. He has also served as
a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Dr.
Lauber received his Ph.D. in neuropsychology from The Ohio
State University.
Today's fourth witness is Mr. Brian Wynne, CEO and
President of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International. Mr. Wynne formerly served as the President of
the Electric Drive Transportation Association, CEO of the
Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility, and held
a leadership role at the Intelligent Transportation Society of
America. Mr. Wynne received a bachelor's degree from the
University of Scranton, a master's degree from the School of
Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and
was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Cologne in
Germany.
Testifying fifth today will be Mr. Colin Guinn, Chief
Revenue Officer of 3D Robotics, North America's largest
personal drone company. Mr. Guinn is the Co-founder and former
CEO of DJI North America and has been featured on 60 Minutes,
Fox, and in Tech Crunch. Before working at 3D Robotics and DJI,
Mr. Guinn founded a company that specialized in producing
aerial photography, marketing materials for luxury home
builders. Mr. Guinn received his bachelor's degree from the
University of Texas in Austin and attended the University of
Miami School of Business.
Our final witness is Dr. John Hansman, the T. Wilson
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, where he
leads the Humans and Automation Division and serves as Director
of the MIT International Center for Air Transportation. Dr.
Hansman is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics and has received several awards including the
1997 FAA Excellence in Aviation Award, the 1994 Losey
Atmospheric Award, the 1990 OSTIV, which is International
Scientific and Technical Soaring Organisation Diploma for
Technical Contributions, and the 1986 AIAA Award for best paper
in thermophysics. Dr. Hansman received his Ph.D. from MIT.
Now, we thank the witnesses again for being here today, and
Dr. Waggoner, we will begin with you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ED WAGGONER, DIRECTOR,
INTEGRATED SYSTEMS RESEARCH PROGRAM,
AERONAUTICS RESEARCH MISSION DIRECTORATE, NASA
Dr. Waggoner. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bonamici and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify on NASA's Aeronautics Research program and the R&D
challenges associated with unmanned aircraft systems, or UASs,
and autonomy.
NASA's aeronautics strategic thrust in Assured Autonomy
defines our vision and approach for supporting the near-term
integration of UAS into the National Airspace System, the NAS.
This near-term research builds a foundation for the more
extensive, transformative changes that autonomous systems will
bring in the mid to the far term.
UAS and autonomous systems hold great promise for the
transformation of our aviation system. We are witnessing the
dawn of a new era in aviation innovation, ushering in flying
vehicles and operations that are unimaginable today, opening up
entirely new commercial markets, much the way that jet engines
did 60 years ago.
NASA is performing research in transitioning our concepts,
technologies, algorithms and knowledge to the FAA and other
stakeholders to help them define the requirements, the
regulations and standards for safe, routine NAS access.
Still, there are significant barriers and research
challenges associated with the introduction of autonomous
systems into our aviation system. This requires these complex
systems to be comprehensively evaluated to verify and validate
that they are operating as designed, thus allowing the FAA to
establish operations and equipment standards.
The majority of NASA's near-term research work towards safe
UAS integration is focused in three areas. In our sense-and-
avoid research, we are helping to determine performance
requirements for a certifiable sense-and-avoid system to ensure
safe separation of UAS with all vehicles operating in the NAS.
We are developing secure, robust, reliable communications
systems and protocols as well as addressing the design of
ground control stations and displays to maximize pilot
effectiveness and safety.
To transfer our research findings, NASA has built effective
partnerships with key customers: the FAA, the Department of
Defense, Department of Homeland Security, RTCA Special
Committee 228, as well as industry and academia. In these
partnerships, NASA is playing a key role supporting critical
activities from the executive level to our subject-matter
experts.
For midterm applications, NASA is researching novel
concepts and technologies to facilitate safe operation of UAS
at altitudes that are not actively controlled today, for
example, low-altitude operation of small, unmanned aircraft.
Initial investigations into this trade space have drawn
interest among a broad range of traditional and non-traditional
aerospace companies and shows promise of opening up entirely
new markets and operational models.
In order to safely enable widespread civilian UAS
operations at lower altitudes, NASA is developing an air
traffic management-like system called UAS Traffic Management.
You can think of this as much like today's surface traffic
management where vehicles operate under a rule-based system of
roads, lanes, signs and traffic lights.
The growing UAS industry and the varied user base is a
harbinger of potential changes that autonomous systems will
bring to aviation but enabling these changes will require
substantial research and experimentation to ensure the safety
and efficacy of these systems. NASA's long-term research in
autonomy will deliver technologies that demonstrate high
payoff, integrated applications that advance the safety,
efficiency and flexibility of the NAS and increase
competitiveness of the U.S. civil aviation industry.
NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate is a
national resource that through game-changing research advances
enables a growing, sustainable and transformative aviation
system. NASA is partnering with other government agencies,
standards development organizations and industry to achieve
routine UAS access into our National Airspace System. Our
partnerships are built on clear roles and responsibilities,
long and productive working relationships, and close and
continuous collaboration and coordination for the specific
needs of the UAS integration challenge.
As the challenges of UAS operations evolve and the broader
implications of integration develop, NASA aeronautics will
continue to advance the research and develop enabling
technologies that will assure the safe realization of the
transformative benefits of these systems.
Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bonamici and members of the
Committee, this concludes my prepared statement. I will be
pleased to answer any questions at this time.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Waggoner follows:]
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Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Waggoner.
Mr. Williams.
TESTIMONY OF MR. JAMES WILLIAMS, MANAGER,
UAS INTEGRATION OFFICE,
AVIATION SAFETY ORGANIZATION, FAA
Mr. Williams. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bonamici,
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss unmanned aircraft systems,
commonly referred to as UAS.
The Federal Aviation Administration has successfully
integrated new technology into the National Airspace System for
more than 50 years, while maintaining the safest aviation
system in the world. Research and development is absolutely
critical to the safe, efficient and timely integration of new
technology like UAS.
Interagency partnerships with the Department of Defense,
the Department of Commerce, the Department of Homeland
Security, and NASA have allowed us to leverage our collective
assets to advance research and development in the area of
unmanned aircraft. Together with RTCA, a Federal advisory
committee, the FAA is developing standards for command-and-
control radios to detect and avoid systems. The FAA, DOD and
NASA are working closely together to develop a technical
standard for UAS detect and avoid systems that will allow UAS
to remain well clear of other aircraft. The research,
engineering and development contributions of the DOD and NASA
have been essential to developing that standard.
Together with NASA and our industry partners, the FAA is
developing standards for command-and-control radios. These
radios provide the link between the pilot and the aircraft, and
it is essential that they be secure and reliable. NASA and our
industry partners are designing and building prototype radios
to validate the standard. The FAA plans to use the NASA
software to test the ability of those radios to function on a
small UAS with size, weight, and power limitation.
The FAA is also actively supporting the research and
development efforts undertaken by other government entities in
the area of unmanned aircraft. Since 2012, the FAA has
participated in the DOD joint test and evaluation effort for
UAS airspace integration sponsored by NORAD NORTHCOM and the
Army. The purpose of the test is to evaluate standardized
procedures to effectively conduct manned and UAS operations in
the airport environment. The FAA provided engineers, en route
controllers, and laboratory assets at the William J. Hughes
Technical Center to support DOD's Human-in-the-loop
simulations. We are also supporting this effort by evaluating
the joint test results for potential applicability at civil
airports. We look forward to continuing these valuable
partnerships and working together with industry and other
government agencies to advance UAS research and development.
The FAA Technical Center is the Nation's premier air
transportation system laboratory. It has a specialized UAS
simulation laboratory for conducting integrated simulations
through research and development UAS integration procedures and
standards. The UAS lab has a variety of test assets including
the ability to link FAA air traffic control systems with high-
fidelity unmanned aircraft simulators provided by our industry
partners through cooperative research and development
agreements.
The Technical Center is also playing an important role in
data collection from the six UAS test sites that were announced
in 2013. A significant portion of the test site data analysis
is being performed at the Technical Center. A data lead from
the Technical Center regional representatives and research
engineers are also visiting each UAS test site to evaluate how
data is captured and maintained. This team will ensure the
integrity of the data transferred to the FAA and determine
whether additional data collection will facilitate meeting the
FAA's research objectives. We continue to work with the test
sites to obtain the most valuable information possible to help
the FAA integrate UAS into the NAS.
We are tremendously grateful for the support and funding
Congress has provided to establish a UAS Center of Excellence.
Our goal is to create a cost-sharing relationship between
academia, industry and government that will focus on research
areas of primary interest to the FAA and the UAS community.
The Center of Excellence will perform short- and long-term
basic and applied research through analysis, development, and
prototyping activities. To that end, the FAA solicited
proposals from accredited institutions of higher education with
their partners and affiliates. We are currently in the process
of reviewing proposals and will announce the award recipient
within this fiscal year.
Together with Congress, we remain committed to the safe,
efficient and timely integration of UAS technology into the
national airspace. We look forward to continuing to work with
our partners in government and industry to continue making
steady progress toward that goal.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony for today, and I
look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Williams follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Williams.
Dr. Lauber.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN LAUBER, CO-CHAIR,
COMMITTEE ON AUTONOMY RESEARCH FOR CIVIL AVIATION,
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Dr. Lauber. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
Bonamici and Members of the Committee. Thanks for the
opportunity to discuss with you today the work of the National
Research Council's Committee on Autonomy Research for Civil
Aviation, which I had the pleasure of co-chairing along with
John Paul Clark from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Our final report was issued last summer after about 18
months of effort and was done at the request of NASA's
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. We were specifically
charged with developing a national agenda for research and
development that would support the introduction of what we call
increasingly autonomous elements into our civil aviation
system. Copies of the summary of our report have been provided
to you.
We recognized that several key characteristics of the civil
aviation system set the context for our study, and first and
foremost is safety. Our air transportation system operates at
unprecedented levels of safety, and it is clear that the
introduction of increasingly autonomous capabilities into that
system will be acceptable only if they preserve or further
enhance this high level of safety and reliability.
Secondly, we had to recognize the diversity of aircraft,
ground systems and personnel that comprise our civil aviation
system. Because so-called legacy aircraft and systems will
continue to operate for the foreseeable future., it is clear
that civil airspace must safety and efficiently accommodate
everything from Piper Cubs designed in the 1930s to
increasingly autonomous unmanned rotary and fixed-wing vehicles
whose design and applications are continually evolving.
Today's aviation system sets the baseline for the system of
tomorrow, and in this context, autonomy is a characteristic or
feature of future aviation automation systems that enable
operations over extended periods of time without direct human
supervision or intervention. This has some profound
implications for urgent research and development in machine
vision, perception and cognition to provide the functional
equivalent of a see-and-avoid capability, which is a
cornerstone for collision avoidance in our national aviation
system, and this is but one example of what we mean when we
talk of increasingly autonomous systems, systems that will
evolve to perform more and more of the functions presently
provided by human pilots, controllers and other skilled
aviation personnel.
Our report identifies eight technical barriers including
such issues as cyber physical security, and we have also
identified four barriers associated with regulation and
certification, which include issues such as airspace access,
and finally, we note in our report barriers related to public
policy, law and regulation, and very importantly, social
concerns about privacy and safety of autonomous systems.
Our recommended research agenda consists of eight broad
tasks, which we consider the first four to be the most urgent
and most difficult. These include fundamental issues about how
to characterize the behavior of systems that change dynamically
over time. Modeling and simulation will be of fundamental
importance to the development and deployment of these systems,
and finally, we discuss a wide range of research issues
involving validation, verification and certification.
The remaining four research areas include issues having to
do with the safe use of open-source hardware and software and
reexamination and redefinition of the role of humans in the
operation of these systems. We note in our report that this
research program is best carried out by multiple government,
academic and industrial entities and will require effective
coordination at all levels.
Civil aviation is on the threshold of profound changes
because of rapid evolution of increasingly autonomous systems.
As often happens with rapidly evolving technology, early
adapters sometimes get caught up in the excitement of the
moment, greatly exaggerating the promise of things to come and
greatly underestimating costs in terms of money, time, and in
some cases, unintended consequences or complications. While
there is little doubt that over the long run the potential
benefits of increasingly autonomous systems in civil aviation
will indeed be great, there should be equally little doubt that
getting there while maintaining the safety and efficiency of
U.S. civil aviation will be no easy matter.
We believe that the barriers in the research program we
have identified is a vital next step, and that concludes my
testimony. I will be happy to respond to questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lauber follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Lauber, and Mr. Wynne.
TESTIMONY OF MR. BRIAN WYNNE,
CEO AND PRESIDENT,
ASSOCIATION FOR UNMANNED VEHICLE
SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL (AUVSI)
Mr. Wynne. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bonamici, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to
address the importance of UAS research and development. I am
speaking on behalf of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle
Systems International, the world's largest nonprofit
organization devoted exclusively to advancing the unmanned
systems and robotics community.
AUVSI has been the voice of unmanned systems for more than
40 years and currently we have more than 7,500 members,
including over 600 corporate members. As you know, UAS increase
human potential allowing us to execute dangerous or difficult
tasks safely and efficiently. Whether it is assisting first
responders with search-and-rescue missions, advancing
scientific research, or helping farmers more efficiently spray
their crops, UAS are capable of saving time, money, and most
importantly, lives.
However, the benefits of this technology do not stop there.
It has incredible potential to create jobs and stimulate the
U.S. economy as well. In 2013, AUVSI released an economic
impact study which found that within the first ten years
following UAS integration, the UAS industry will create more
than 100,000 new jobs and have an economic impact of more than
$82 billion.
The benefits I just outlined can be recognized immediately
once we put the necessary rules in place to enable commercial
operations. We understand that a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
for small UAS from the Federal Aviation Administration is now
expected any day. It cannot come soon enough.
Establishing rules will also eliminate the current approach
of regulating by exemption whereby the FAA issues exemptions on
a case-by-case basis for some commercial UAS operations under
Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012.
While we are here today to discuss the critical role of UAS
research and development, the fact is, we don't need a lot of
additional research to permit low altitude, line-of-sight
operations. A variety of commercial applications can be safely
authorized right away, and we look forward to working with the
FAA to get this done as expeditiously as possible.
As we look forward--as we look beyond the initial phase of
UAS integration, we will need robust research to further expand
access to the airspace and address some of the challenges that
exist to flying beyond line of sight. Areas requiring more
research include sense and avoid, command and control, and
autonomous operations.
The advancement of UAS technology needs to be a
collaborative effort between industry and government. While the
industry is investing millions in research and the Federal
Government has various research projects underway, we can all
do this better and in a more coordinated fashion. The
challenges we jointly face call for a national leadership
initiative that places UAS integration into the National
Airspace System and all relevant R&D at the top of our
country's priority list. Importantly, the benefits of this
research extend well beyond UAS. It will make the entire
National Airspace System safer for all aircraft, manned and
unmanned.
A deeper national commitment to UAS R&D has three main
components. First, the industry and its government partners
need a holistic research plan that coordinates all UAS
research. While the FAA designated test sites went operational
in 2014, too many questions about the collection, sharing, and
analysis of test data remain unanswered.
Second, the federal government needs more resources to
coordinate UAS research. The FAA was given $14.9 million to
support its UAS research this year, which is up from previous
years. However, given the scope of the research needed to
advance UAS integration, we feel this figure is insufficient.
Third, the government must have a transparent intellectual
property protections--provide transparent intellectual property
protections. Companies on the cutting edge of UAS innovations
won't participate in FAA or other governmental research
activities if their intellectual property isn't safeguarded.
The FAA has taken significant steps to advance the UAS
integration but much work remains to be done.
AUVSI members stand ready to collaborate with the
appropriate government agencies to accelerate the needed R&D
efforts that will allow for the safe integration of UAS into
the national air space system.
Thank you again for this opportunity and I look forward to
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wynne follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Wynne.
Let me say to Members, we have had a series of votes just
called. We are going to try to finish our witness testimony
before we go vote and then we will resume the hearing
immediately after the last vote.
So we will go now to Mr. Guinn, who I think has the most
fun job of the day, and you are recognized for your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. COLIN GUINN,
CRO, 3D ROBOTICS, SMALL UAV COALITION MEMBER
Mr. Guinn. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith and Ranking
Member Bonamici. Thank you, Committee, here for having me. It
is an honor to come speak to you guys about something that I am
very passionate about.
And I think what I would like to do is just talk to you
guys about kind of the stalemate that we are in today between,
you know, no one is going to disagree to the benefits that UAS
can provide to the economic, the efficiencies in business, the
job creation, the revenue that can come into our country, and
then at the same time, nobody is going to argue with the fact
that we must be extremely thoughtful, considerate, and careful
in integrating these systems into the national airspace because
obviously the FAA has a second-to-none safety record and there
is no question that we must maintain that.
So I guess for me today I would like to just talk a little
bit about where can we start, what can we do now that allows us
to bridge that gap between the chicken and the egg. So, you
know, we have the FAA test sites, which are great, but at the
same time it is a little bit of testing in a bubble. And to ask
research and development companies to rapidly iterate their
technology and have to every couple months figure out a time
where they can get into a test site, travel with their entire
engineering team, you know, did they accidentally leave the
spectrum analyzer at the lab, now someone has to fly home to
get that. You know, so it is--it doesn't allow for very rapid
innovation, which is obviously not going to let us keep up with
the other countries in this world that are absolutely reaping
the rewards and the benefits of this technology.
Additionally, we must have--we must--testing in test sites
is not necessarily going to give us the necessary data and the
logged flight hours to figure out what the hurdles are, what
the roadblocks are to safely integrating these systems into the
NAS, and so I think what can be done in the meantime, and as
you will see here--this is something I am going to talk about
today--when it comes to very small systems, this is the Parrot
Bebop, which weighs just over a pound and is actually an
incredibly advanced UAV or drone.
And so what I wanted to talk about is I think we can start
somewhere and instead of having to regulate and integrate 20-,
30-, and 40-pound systems or 50-pound systems into our national
airspace all at one time, what I would at least bring to
discussion is a possibility of taking very small lightweight
systems, as many other countries in the world have done. You
know, there is somewhat of a precedence around sub-2 kilogram
systems because they carry the least amount of kinetic energy,
they have the least risk-based approach that--the least chance
of causing any harm, and so--all right. We all saw a drone fly.
Fantastic. Incredible.
Chairman Smith. I was hoping you would fly it over the
whole room, not just in one location.
Mr. Guinn. Well, you said no haircuts. We could have----
Chairman Smith. I said no haircuts earlier but I--he could
have done it----
Mr. Guinn. We could have arranged that. No--I--so the point
that I want to make today is that if we start somewhere, as
many other countries have, with the smallest, lightest weight
systems, we are basically using a proportional and risk-based
system for regulation so that by integrating today or as soon
as possible for commercial use small, sub-2 kilogram systems,
we can now start gathering thousands of hours of flight time
figuring out what are the issues when you are actually using
these things in the national airspace, not just these FAA test
sites. And I think that is something that could potentially
bridge our gap while we are figuring out, okay, now how do we
integrate the next heavier class? Great, we learned a lot from
these little tiny ones----
Chairman Smith. Um-hum.
Mr. Guinn. --and while we are learning a lot from the
little tiny ones, we are capturing the vast majority of the
economic benefit of commercial UAVs that can do power line
inspection, that can have geo-fences set up, they can return to
their home location and land themselves. They log every
parameter of the flight in real time. These small systems can
be saving wildfire firefighters' lives, they can be saving the
lives of people that are flying full-scale helicopters over
power lines simply to take pictures of the power lines. They
can be used for a myriad of situations where they can save
human lives.
So that is all I wanted to say today is that, you know,
maybe we can start somewhere, integrate the lightweight
systems, use that for data collection so that we can see what
happens in the real world, and also satisfy some of that
economic benefit that all those other countries are
experiencing right now.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Guinn follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Guinn. Good suggestions.
Dr. Hansman.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN R. HANSMAN,
T. WILSON PROFESSOR OF
AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS,
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (MIT)
Dr. Hansman. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bonamici,
Members of the Committee, thanks for the opportunity to be here
today.
As you can see--it is sort of hard to follow the demo, but
as you can see, UAVs are actually one of the most exciting
areas in aerospace and particularly aeronautics today. You
know, the same technologies that we use to enable these cell
phones, the miniaturization of processing sensors, coupled with
flight control algorithms, et cetera, enable incredible power
in very--you can see in the stability of the vehicle high
performance in very small packages.
Today in my office back at MIT in the basement I have two
teams of students building new UAV concepts, so it is a real
exciting area.
The thing to remember about UAV integration in the NAS is
that there is a huge spectrum of UAV sizes ranging from a few
grams up to, you know, hundreds of thousands of pounds. And it
is important to note that one size isn't going to fit all. We
have to have different concepts of operation for integrating
different types of UAVs into the NAS.
I will break it into just four categories. We have the
small UAS operating at low altitudes within line of sight of
the operator. We actually know how to do that today. We have
been doing it for years and we really just need to get going
and get that enabled. That is what you have heard from some of
this. But there are multiple other categories. You have high
altitude UAVs, sort of the typical UAVs the military will want
to operate. We also sort of know how to do that. We sort of
developed operating rules. They are normally operating above
where most of the manned airplanes are. It is not too tough a
problem.
The two more challenging areas are small UAVs that are
being operated beyond the line of sight of the operator so you
don't have the visual feedback. You are going to rely more on
algorithms. You are going to rely more on the technology. And
the toughest area is actually UAVs whose missions require that
they operate in the same airspace that manned airplanes need to
operate. And frankly, we don't have good what we call concepts
of operations for either the small UAS beyond line of sight or
the larger UAS operating in that airspace.
There has been so much focus on the small UAS that we
really haven't done the research to enable the concepts of
operation. And you need concepts of operation in order to guide
the research, to develop the standards, to work out the rules,
to figure out the human factors. You know, for example, if we
have UAVs operating as IFR aircraft in the system today, how
does the air traffic controller think about that UAV? How do
they communicate with them? Do they call them--do they call the
operator up on a landline? Is there some relay? What happens
when there is a loss of communication? How do they think about
it? And it is actually a tough thing for the FAA because there
are a lot of policy issues. For example, who do you give
priority to? Do you give priority to the manned airplane or do
you give the priority to the UAV airplane? While we would
normally say give it to the manned airplane but what if the UAV
airplane is doing a life-critical mission and the manned
airplane is on a sightseeing tour? Who should have priority? So
there are a lot of questions here.
So most of my comments are in my prepared remarks but I
would just say I think the takeaway is that we really need to
develop the con ops and we are really behind the eight ball. We
really haven't been working the harder problems of the fully
integrated UAS and some of these issues of the beyond line of
sight. I would note that I am encouraged by, for example, the
work that NASA has started on UTM concept, beyond line of
sight, so they are starting to attack some of those problems.
So thank you for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hansman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Okay. Dr. Hansman, thank you for those
comments.
The Committee is going to stand in recess until after the
series of three votes, and when we return, we will go
immediately to our questions. And sorry for the inconvenience.
I hope we are back within about 30 minutes if you all want to
take a break until then.
[Recess.]
Chairman Smith. The Science Committee will reconvene and we
will now begin our questions, and I will recognize myself for
that purpose.
Dr. Waggoner, Mr. Williams, let me direct my first question
to you all, which is this: What is a realistic deadline for
integrating the drones into the National Airspace System? I
mentioned in my opening statement that it appears that the
deadline has slipped but what can drone users and even the
American people, the wider audience, what is a realistic
deadline for that integration? Dr. Waggoner and then Mr.
Williams.
Dr. Waggoner. So, Chairman, I would answer that right now
we do have a level of integration, so as--for public aircraft
they are flying every day. We are--you know, NASA does research
but we are also users and we have unmanned aircraft. So for
civil applications, we are working very closely with the FAA
and RTCA 228 to verify and validate these key technology
barriers, the sense-and-avoid, the radio communications----
Chairman Smith. Right.
Dr. Waggoner. --the displays for the ground control
stations to allow the FAA to determine these minimum
operational performance standards.
Chairman Smith. Okay. And, Mr. Williams, when might we
expect the FAA to propose some rules?
Mr. Williams. Well, the FAA is working closely with our
administration partners in the rulemaking process, and we are
doing everything we can to get that small unmanned aircraft
rule out. But our main focus is to get it right.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Mr. Williams. You know, we--the rulemaking process is
deliberative----
Chairman Smith. I understand. When do you think you might
get that out?
Mr. Williams. I at this point can't give you a firm
deadline. We are still working on the internal discussion----
Chairman Smith. Do you have a goal in mind? I mean you have
got a lot of people across the United States waiting and do you
have any kind of working deadline or working goal?
Mr. Williams. Our goals are to get it out as quickly as we
can as long as we get it out right----
Chairman Smith. Okay. Is it likely to be this year or next
year?
Mr. Williams. I can't speculate. My own personal hope is
that we get it out as soon as possible, but, you know, it has
got to go through the regulatory process that has been put in
place by Congress and we are working our way through that.
Chairman Smith. Okay. And I am going to pressure you one
more time. You are slipping off my question here. How long does
the regulatory process normally take in a situation like this?
Mr. Williams. Well, you have got to understand this is a
very complex rulemaking. You are having----
Chairman Smith. Never mind. Never mind. I can tell I am not
going to get the answer that I was hoping for but we will take
your word for expediting the process as much as we can.
Dr. Lauber, you mentioned this in your testimony a while
ago, but what technology is needed to be prioritized before the
NAS integration? What are the----
Dr. Lauber. Well, I refer to what we believe is probably
the highest, and I think a couple of the other witnesses also
mentioned the need for technology that provides the equivalent
of see and avoid, the sense and avoid technology that needs to
be in place for full integration of a wide range of these
vehicles into the aviation system. That would be the highest
that I would----
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Wynne and Mr. Guinn,
what is the private sector contributing to this integration
process? We have the government on one side--maybe not on one
side but as a part of the process, we have the private sector
as part of the process as well, but--so what are the
contributions of the private sector to the integration?
Mr. Wynne. My belief, Mr. Chairman, is that the industry is
going to bring the lion's share of the technology solutions, as
it should. You know, companies like 3D Robotics will--at the
end of the day they are constructing the devices, they are
developing the software, and not just directly in the industry,
the microprocessor speeds are getting faster, et cetera, et
cetera. So this was really--the spirit of my testimony was
industry should really be doing the lion's share of this. We
should be proving the concepts to the satisfaction of the
regulators in this R&D process.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wynne. Mr. Guinn,
anything to add?
Mr. Guinn. Yeah. So it--not--to give a specific example, of
course these companies are, you know, integrating and
innovating these advanced technologies such as sense-and-avoid
and, you know, geo-fencing and return-to-home technology, but
to give a specific example of what 3D Robotics is doing is if I
fly my drone today outside, you can log into droneshare.com and
watch my entire flight automatically. So if I am--if I choose--
any of our members around the world choose to make their
profile public, every single time you fly, that log file is
uploaded auto-magically from your smart device into the cloud
to droneshare.com and we are able to now collect tens if not
hundreds of thousands of hours of data on what are the fringe
cases, right? That is what we have to figure out. What are the
fringe cases when you actually start integrating, you know,
hundreds of thousands of these systems into airspace?
Chairman Smith. You mentioned the drone we saw a while ago
in the room was a fairly sophisticated device. What did it
cost? What is its range? What is its use?
Mr. Guinn. So that is more of a hobby-grade drone. It is
called the Bebop. It is incredibly advanced in that it has got
a full high definition camera that displays on your smart
device. You can either fly with a smart device or with a long-
range controller. It has got barometric altimeters, it has got
optical flow sensors to look at the ground and maintain
positioning, it has got accelerometers, gyroscopes, and a full
computer that is a flight control system on board and it is
$499.
Chairman Smith. And what is the range?
Mr. Guinn. The range, depending on if you are using a
smartphone, you are restricted to kind of, you know, Wi-Fi
range----
Chairman Smith. Yeah.
Mr. Guinn. --but if you use their controller, you can get
up to, you know, a kilometer of range with something like that.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Hansman, you mentioned during your testimony what your
students are working on in the classroom and I just wondered if
we can expect any kind of breakthroughs and some of you might
give some examples of what they are working on as well, but you
have obviously seen it from a hands-on approach.
Dr. Hansman. So I will just give you a couple quick
examples. One vehicle that our students prototyped two years
ago is a small UAV that can do a one-hour surveillance mission,
which is launched out of an antimissile flare canister on a
military airplane, so it is a two inch by two and a half inch
by seven inch package. It gets shot out at 300 Gs. This was a
concept that nobody in the Air Force thought would work. The
students actually demonstrated it. It is now a developmental
program where the vehicles they developed are being launched
out of F-16s right now at Edwards.
Chairman Smith. I hope that is not classified information.
Dr. Hansman. No.
Chairman Smith. That is intriguing.
Dr. Hansman. Yeah.
Chairman Smith. Well, thank you all for your answers and
now I will recognize the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici,
for her questions.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you to our very accomplished panel of witnesses.
As you heard in the opening remarks I gave, Oregon does
have three test sites through the Pan-Pacific UAS test range
led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. We talked a lot
about the benefits of the technology. One of the concerns that
I have heard from constituents in Oregon who are working in the
developing industry is that there are still some problems with
advancing the testing of their products, especially true for
small companies that don't have a solid revenue stream and the
test range is--and I think Mr. Guinn suggested this--this test
range is despite being set up to provide a space where the
development can take place may be prohibitively expensive for
small companies and prevent--there may be other logistical
barriers.
So, Mr. Guinn, could you expand just a little bit on how
the FAA could work with the test ranges to best address these
concerns? And then I want to allow time for a couple other
questions.
Mr. Guinn. Sure. So really quickly, right now there is not
really a set understanding of how you even schedule a time to
go to the range. You know, there is no way to log into the
system and say when is the next available day? You know, it is
not a matter of them being too busy because, quite frankly,
there is not a whole lot of places--or companies using the test
range. It is more a matter of what is the process? And there is
a lot of bureaucracy surrounding getting even the approval to
go to a test range and test fly for a few days so you don't
know if that is going to be 30 days or 2 months.
Ms. Bonamici. Well--and I am going to ask Mr. Williams
about that, too, but first I want to ask Mr. Wynne a question.
Thanks for your association work and what you have been
doing. I want to echo the comments already made by the Chairman
and some of my colleagues about the concerns about the
rulemaking, and I--somebody made a comment about the proposed--
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is expected so we are encouraged
to hear that news. I actually sent a letter to Secretary Foxx
joined by several colleagues who are concerned about the
timeline. Of course we want this to be done right and we don't
want to jeopardize safety, but we are concerned about not only
workforce development and those challenges of recruiting people
into this industry if we don't have the certainty, but also for
these new companies attracting private investment.
So, Mr. Wynne, have you noticed some particular challenges
because of the lack of certainty in attracting venture capital
to the industry?
Mr. Wynne. Oh, absolutely, ma'am, and I thank you for the
question. There is--if I am investing money in a project like
this, I want to know what the go-to-market strategy is, I want
to know what the return on the investment is. If I don't know
when I can fly and when I can pursue some of the commercial
opportunities that are out there, it is a big barrier. So there
is I think already--the fact that there is money flowing in,
there is tremendous product being developed, says that this is
a great investment opportunity and a great business opportunity
and a job creator, which is something we need to be paying
attention to. And so while we want to get this right and we
want to do it once, you know, for the various levels and we are
on a certain trajectory here, we think that there are
opportunities immediately that require very little regulation
and some of our--some of the countries abroad have demonstrated
this success.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And I know Mr. Guinn talked about
that.
So, Mr. Williams, you heard Mr. Guinn talk about some of
the possible ways of moving forward. Of course it is not a one-
size-fits-all because of the various sizes and capabilities and
ranges, but I wanted to ask you first about the testing sites.
Some companies have suggested maybe performing initial tests at
a range where their safety can be demonstrated but then maybe
performing additional tests closer to home. Could that outline
potential changes--or could you talk about some potential
changes that could allow some more flexibility, especially for
the small developers? And then I also wanted you to respond to
the concern about the small companies having access and being
able to test.
Mr. Williams. So, first, the small companies have access to
our experimental airworthiness approval process, which goes
back to the manned aircraft process. It is the same regulations
that are applied. We are in the process of updating that to
make it a little more user-friendly for unmanned aircraft
operators to get through that process.
On the test site front, we have set up a program to enable
all of the test sites, should they choose to do so, to have the
authority to issue experimental airworthiness certificates on
behalf of the FAA, thereby streamlining the process of getting
a new aircraft into the testing phase at one of the test sites.
So we think that is a significant benefit that the test sites
can offer to the industry and we are--you know, we are
constantly looking at ways to streamline our processes and work
to enable these new companies to test their aircraft in a safe
and by-the-rules way.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And I see my time is expired so I
will submit my Section 333 exemption question for the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thanks, Ms. Bonamici.
The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lucas, is recognized for
questions.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I would direct my question I guess to Dr. Waggoner and
Mr. Wynne and Mr. Guinn and Mr. Hansman.
In recent years, agriculture has been one of the bright
spots in our nation's economy. Can you speak for a moment about
the potential applications in agricultural settings and what
benefits these might provide for both producers and consumers?
Whoever?
Dr. Waggoner. Well, I could start. I have just a little bit
of experience. And what we saw some high school students do
this year who had the challenge of developing an unmanned
aircraft to survey all--I think it was about a 100-square-mile
farm, a large farm of corn for European corn borers. These
kids, incredible kids from all over the country came up with a
number of different solutions that they showed that there were
viable solutions that were affordable, usable for the farmer,
for precision agriculture where they could precisely locate
where there were issues either with fertilizer or pesticides
where they needed to be applied and could precisely do that.
So we saw that as an opportunity that shows that it is--
there is a market out there for that work. And that was--that
is part of what is behind our more midterm work on this UAS
traffic management. So allowing the farmer or a commercial
operation to go into a farm and do that kind of surveillance
operation at low altitudes very safely and in a way that would
be very cost effective.
Dr. Hansman. So ag applications are already ongoing in
other parts of the world. In Japan, for example, where you have
very small rice paddies, we are seeing applications there. It
is considered one of the number one applications. There is
significant interest on the part of agricultural departments to
use these vehicles, and in fact they are frustrated by the rule
like everybody else in that it is difficult for them to get
exemptions to go off and do experiments. So it is one of the
big opportunities spaces.
Mr. Guinn. So if I can maybe provide a specific example of
a way that even one of these very small lightweight systems can
provide real benefit to the farmer. So we had one of the top
private vineyards in Napa Valley contact us and say, hey, we
have been hearing about these drones; what can we do with them?
And, you know, everyone talks about the super high-tech ability
to do hyperspectral imagery and look for water damage and, you
know, pesticide, but even if you just take it to the really
simple level, most of these farmers have not ever seen a very
high resolution look-down image of their vineyards.
So we went out, we took one of our sub-2KG systems, flew
around, took a lot of pictures looking down in the back of the
truck at the farm, stitched those together into a photo mosaic
which allowed him to see a very high resolution image of the
crop. And for the generations that they have had that vineyard,
he looked down and said, wow, look over here in the corner of
the vineyard here where--see how this is actually a little
darker green that this whole area? Because you can't see that
when you are walking the rows of the vineyard because when you
are up close you don't see that minute differences in the
green. This must be the fact that there is a slight elevation
change there, which is sucking more water down to that area.
That means we need to harvest these grapes 2 to 3 weeks earlier
than the rest of the vineyard. He then walked us out, took some
grapes from that area, took some grapes from the rest of the
vineyard, squished them in a bag, and you could clearly taste
the difference between the two sets. And he said, before today,
we never knew that existed. And that happened in two hours.
Mr. Wynne. Congressman, thank you for the question. The
numbers that AUVSI put together in 2013, the $82 billion in the
first ten years after we get access to the National Airspace
System, we think as high as 80 percent of that could be
agriculture.
Mr. Lucas. Absolutely. Dr. Williams, I come from a State
where the Chamber of Commerce likes for us to use the phrase
``significant weather events'' occur on a commonplace--in a
common way, and my home State is making a lot of investments in
weather-related research. And one of the things that I
understand is a challenge is this requirement to obtain a
Certificate of Authorization, COA, or a Section 333 exemption,
which can be kind of challenging and cumbersome. What is the
FFA--FAA doing to expedite the approval process for this kind
of thing?
Mr. Williams. We are actually working in both areas to
approve the processing of the approvals. Most of the--
understand that Section 333 approvals are for the aircraft. The
COA process is for the airspace. In order to operate unmanned
aircraft you can't really comply with the see-and-avoid rule so
we have to give you a waiver or authorization to do that. That
is the COA process. That process is undergoing a revamp inside
of the FAA. We are in the process of building new software to
interact with the folks using it. We think that is going to be
a major step forward.
We have achieved tremendous amount of progress with our
public partners in accelerating their approvals. We have
reduced the amount of overhead for many of the frequent users
like NASA. They have a much easier way forward.
On the 333 side we are also working hard to streamline that
process. We have put together a tiger team that is in the
process of developing a streamlined and more efficient process
to move those forward quicker. You have got to understand the
exemption process was never intended as an approval mechanism.
It was intended to deal with exceptions, special cases. So we
are trying to have the--make that up as we go so to speak to
figure out a way to accelerate it while still--it is a
regulatory process so there are rules that have to be met as we
go through it. So we are trying to find the right balance.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Lucas.
The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this hearing, something we are all very interested in
and it is critical that we get a handle on this. We don't want
to--on the one hand, we want innovation to move forward and all
the opportunities that are brought out for business purposes
and others, other purposes from UAS, but we know that there is
a lot of issues also that need to be dealt with.
And so I wanted to ask Mr. Williams, and anyone else can
jump in after Mr. Williams if they have anything to add, I want
to talk about the concern about the number of UAS near-misses
being reported. My district includes Midway Airport so it is
especially important to me, also Lewis University Airport is in
my district. So given the rapid increase in number of small UAS
in use for both for hobby and commercial purposes, what is
being done to better understand the risk of UAS collision and
what is being done to track near misses?
Mr. Williams. So we are in the process of building a
tracking system modeled on the way we track the laser incidents
that have been going on. We are also working hard on an
education campaign to try to--we believe that most of the
people that are flying these aircraft near airports just don't
understand the area they are flying in and of the rules about
where they can and can't fly. So we have--in partnership with
the Small UAV Coalition; the Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles
International, AUVSI; and the Academy of Model Aeronautics, we
have a campaign ongoing called Know Before You Fly that we are
working to find any means we can to educate the public about
where they fly because, you know, primarily the FAA is
interested in compliance with our rules, and we believe the
best way to achieve that compliance is through education. So we
are working hard to make that happen.
On the research side--I am sorry, you had another question
about the research?
Mr. Lipinski. What is being better done to understand the
risk of----
Mr. Williams. Right.
Mr. Lipinski. --UAS collision?
Mr. Williams. Right. So we actually have started this year
a research initiative to look into what the potential is for--
or really to assess the risk of an unmanned aircraft to a
manned aircraft, and that project is just getting off the
ground this year and we are accelerating it thanks to the
additional funding that Congress provided us in our research
budget this year. We should be able to accelerate that and move
it forward more rapidly than we had been able to.
Mr. Lipinski. Anything else that any witnesses think should
be done----
Mr. Wynne. I just wanted----
Mr. Lipinski. --that are not being done?
Mr. Wynne. I just wanted to emphasize that we thank the FAA
for their help with this campaign to educate. I think in many
instances it really is an education challenge today. Obviously
commercial operations are not allowed at this stage until we
get a rule, but the education campaign is really about keeping
the UAS under 400 feet, 5 miles from the airport, within line
of sight, stay away from crowds. It is basic common sense and
we think that in many instances it is just a question of
education. We have had tremendous response from the aviation
community on this. We have got new partners in NBAA, EAA, et
cetera. Many of the organizations are stepping in and helping
us get that word out.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. One other thing I wanted to move
on to before my time runs out is about test sites. The FAA
established six test sites to enable UAS research, and these
sites are operating under an agreement that may restrict the
FAA's role in directing research. So I want to ask, Mr.
Williams, what steps is the FAA taking to ensure that the test
sites are being used to address the Nation's top research
priorities, and are there any barriers that need to be
addressed?
Mr. Williams. Back in the fall we released to the test
sites a list of over 100 research areas that we believe we
could benefit from having them look into. I think the--there
has been a lot of misunderstanding about what they can and
can't do at our behest. Our only rule is that, you know,
through the procurement rules we have to--if we are going to
direct one of our contractors--and the Other Transaction
Agreements we have with them amount to a contract between them
and us--if we are going to direct work, we have to pay for it.
So--but we can also agree to work together with in-kind
resources through these agreements.
So the--but the bottom line is to all of it, all we have to
do is document it in those agreements and we can work together
on any research project that is of interest to those test
sites, and I believe that, you know, we have communicated that
to them and I believe that we have--they understand the
situation pretty well at this point.
Mr. Lipinski. All right, thank you. I have other questions
that I will submit for the record.
I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
On behalf of the new Member of the Committee, Barbara
Comstock of Virginia, without objection I would like to put a
letter from a Michael Kronmiller in the record. And without
objection, so entered.
[The information appears in Appendix II]
Chairman Smith. The gentleman from California, Mr.
Rohrabacher, is recognized for questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
Now, let me see if I am getting all of this straight now.
The FAA actually will approve Mr. Guinn's drones, their design,
and their capabilities and approve them to actually go in the
air before you are permitted to fly them, is that correct? Mr.
Guinn? Mr. Williams? Who can answer that?
Mr. Williams. Sir, they are approved--the two processes run
in parallel so that when the approval to fly the aircraft
without an airworthiness certificate that is done through the
Section 333 exemption process----
Mr. Rohrabacher. You say that approval is based on the
design of the aircraft and its capabilities, is that right?
Mr. Williams. Yes, and the operations. And then they----
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Mr. Williams. They come in and say, okay, we want to
operate it in this particular area----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Mr. Williams. --and our traffic organization assesses
whether or not it is safe for them to operate, and so they are
looking for, you know, conflicts with their manned aircraft.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So this is both FAA in both cases?
One is the safety of the equipment itself and then the safety
of the actual instance that you--they want to use this specific
situation. And where--are we having any trouble, Mr. Guinn,
with the actual approval of the system itself meaning your
crafts that you can bring before them for approval? Is that--am
I understanding this, do you think that should be streamlined
or----
Mr. Guinn. Yes, sir. So when one of our customers wants to
use, say, a system for, you know, looking at photo mosaics of a
farm so that they can see where the water is going and when to
pick the grapes, they needed to take the system and get a
Section 333 exemption, which is where the FAA determines is
this aircraft----
Mr. Rohrabacher. But once you have gotten that from this--
to do that----
Mr. Guinn. Well, first you have to get that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. That is what I mean----
Mr. Guinn. And so far, of all the companies----
Mr. Rohrabacher. But after that you don't have to get it
again, right? Is that correct?
Mr. Guinn. For the Section 333. So so far 14 have been
granted.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Out of how many?
Mr. Guinn. Is that correct, 14?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Out of how many requests?
Mr. Guinn. Out of everyone in the country that wants to fly
their drones.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Oh, is that right, 14?
Mr. Williams. Right, but the process is being improved and
they are going to be coming out a little more frequently----
Mr. Guinn. So it is difficult first to get it, 14 out of
however many thousand----
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Mr. Guinn. --and then once you have a Section 333, you have
to get the Certificate of Authorization to fly in a specific
area, which is----
Mr. Rohrabacher. So what we have here is technology and the
technological capabilities are far surpassed the ability of
making decisions about standards and rulemaking--general
rulemaking, and that is what we have to catch up with. This
isn't the first time that has happened in history, I am sure,
and I hope that--can you tell me--can anyone here tell me which
is more dangerous, a small privately owned airplane flying from
here to there or a drone flying from here to there? Anybody
want to----
Mr. Guinn. I have had several friends that have been in
helicopter crashes, actually specifically test--you know, going
out the side of the door, taking pictures of power lines. So,
you know, I can't speak to the factual evidence here, but in my
estimation, having a 2- or 3-pound drone flying over national
grid power line taking photos, if they were to fail in any way,
shape, or form, it doesn't have to worry about auto rotating
down to the ground when they are already flying outside the
chart. All it does is bounce off the power line, fall to the
ground, you take another one out of the truck and keep
inspecting. So my guess is that that would be much more safe
and would allow us to start saving lives today.
Dr. Hansman. We have actually done analysis on this and it
really depends on the size of the drone. So for a small drone,
the risk to people on the ground and to people in the air is
much lower.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Has there ever been anybody hurt from a
crashing drone, on the ground?
Mr. Guinn. I mean there has been ouch, you hit me in the
head with that drone but----
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Mr. Guinn. --you know.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me ask about the--how the FAA is
planning to do this, these testing areas, test sites that have
been established to help you try to determine whether or not
these pieces of equipment should be approved. Could somebody
tell me what they do at those test sites?
Mr. Williams. Well, the primary intention for the test
sites is to provide an opportunity for manufacturers to do
their developmental tests and evaluation in support of moving
forward toward approval.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And that is what the--that is what we have
spent $11 million on that, providing that to you last year and
now that budget has been increased, is that right?
Mr. Williams. No, sir. There has not been any appropriation
to the FAA to directly support those test sites.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Williams. We funded it out of our existing
appropriations.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Is it possible that when we have these
companies that are seeking profit, which is a good thing, and
they have technology, which is a good technology, do you think
that in order to facilitate and to move the process along that
maybe it would be good to have the companies reimburse the
government for the specific tests or be able to certify certain
people to conduct those tests other than government employees?
Mr. Williams. I believe that is the actual intent of the
test sites. The cost for running the test sites is currently
being borne by the States who sponsored them and they are
getting compensation from the companies who come to them for
testing, or the government. In a couple cases there have been
some government testing done there. The FAA doesn't fund the
test site operating costs.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Williams. They are independently run.
Mr. Rohrabacher. We only have 14 of these things approved
so I can't imagine we have had much revenue so far, but I would
hope that----
Mr. Guinn. So there is a small number of companies covering
those costs, which is why it is prohibitively expensive to go
to those sites to test----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well----
Mr. Guinn. --versus going to Canada or Mexico, our
neighbors.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
And by the way, just to note, my family, which are catching
a plane back to California, just happened to be coming in at
the time when that drone was flying around and I guess they--my
son got an interesting opinion of what his father does for a
living so----
Dr. Hansman. And it kind of shows you how these vehicles
actually stimulate the interest of the sort of next generation
of young people.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
The gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. Esty, is recognized
for questions.
Ms. Esty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the Ranking
Member for having this hearing today, and thank you all for
your testimony.
Unmanned aircraft systems have already significantly
impacted, as we have discussed today, particularly in the field
of agriculture, changing the way farmers do business and
increasing yields and decreasing the use of pesticides and this
is all a very good thing. And coming from the State of
Connecticut where we have been longtime leaders in aviation and
aerospace, we are very excited about these opportunities. But
we also live in an incredibly congested airspace and some of us
that include Mr. Lipinski and I serve on the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee where we are having hearings on the
same issue.
So I would like to turn to that a little bit and get you to
help us understand how, on the R&D side, what are the risks we
should be looking at? What should be the research priorities to
avoid those issues which are a little different than the
agricultural setting, those are the ``what do you deal with
LaGuardia to Logan'' issues. And particularly as we follow up
on the exciting possibility of improving our infrastructure,
the grid, looking at lines, these are very important
opportunities, but again, they do pose risks, particularly in
the congested airspace.
So anyone who wants to jump in and help us guide through
research capabilities, what are the risks we face, and on the
R&D side what should we be prioritizing to address those risks
outside of regulation, actually understanding?
Mr. Guinn. So--go ahead.
Dr. Hansman. So from a risk standpoint if you look at the
risks of UAV operations, we don't have the risk to the
passengers on board, so that two risk areas are ground impact
hazard, people being hurt by drones coming out of the sky, or
midair collision risk. The ground impact hazard, you can do the
analysis, and it really scales significantly by vehicle mass.
So we--and studies have been done and you can look at the risk
versus the reliability required to compare those with manned
airplanes and set standards there. From the airborne collision
risk standpoint, it also scales with size.
So for very, very small UAVs we design airplanes so that
they can take bird strikes. So an interesting research question
is what is the threshold mass for UAV for which the existing
regulatory guidance on bird strike criteria would allow you to
work there? Above that size you need some method to separate
the airplanes. The easy thing is to do segregation, okay, and
that is where we are working now. The hard is to come up with,
as I said before, concepts of operation that would allow you to
operate in the same airspace and be coordinated in some way,
and that is really where we have got to work is the concepts.
Mr. Guinn. And I would completely agree with that, and I
think that is why many other countries have said, you know, if
it is less than 2 KG, it is going to be similar to a bird
strike which planes are already designed to handle in that
worst-case scenario if that were to happen.
And I think the other thing that we need to do, like I said
before is, you know, by going to FAA test sites with a team of
Ph.D.'s flying a perfectly assembled drone, we are not figuring
out what the fringe cases are. We are not figuring out what the
real risks are when you integrate thousands of these systems.
And the concept of integrating thousands and thousands of
systems that are far beyond what would be considered a bird
strike is extremely scary. So to me starting with those
lightweight systems so that we can collect all that data and
start figuring out, okay, here are the fringe cases, here are
the failure points, here are the risks. Now, how do we mitigate
those for the next set of heavier aircraft?
Dr. Lauber. And I might add if I may that one of the four
high priority most difficult research projects we identified in
our study had to do with these very issues, the question of
verification, validation, and certification and how you go
about setting appropriate standards of risk that apply to these
light small UAS systems in a world that was basically created
to deal with manned aircraft systems of much larger mass. It is
a very different world and demands very high priority in our
view.
Dr. Waggoner. And as Dr. Hansman mentioned, the harder
problem of interoperability, particularly with a larger
aircraft, so that is something that NASA has taken on and we
are doing that research, so the sense-and-avoid work. But also,
as you--the sense-and-avoid systems work, how you display that
information to the pilot so that they can make informed
decisions, and we are doing research in both of those areas in
support of the FAA's standards development.
Ms. Esty. Thank you. That is all very helpful. And those
who have thoughts on how this might integrate with the NextGen
system and if there are issues around UAS that we should be
thinking about as we are addressing NextGen as part of the FAA
authorization, I would love to follow up with----
Dr. Hansman. I would just say we need to leverage off of
our investment in ADS-B and some of the communications
architectures.
Ms. Esty. Thank you very much.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Esty.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Knight, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Knight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having
this esteemed panel. I have just a couple statements, maybe a
quick question.
You know, the UAS systems have helped quite a bit. I know
that these aren't something new; they have been around for 50
or 60 years. I can remember the HiMAP program which helped us
get into the fourth and fifth generation fighters that we have
today. And also I appreciate what they do to help pilots have a
safer flight. The G-CAST system that we are working on right
now in the United States Air Force and the Navy, we put that on
a UAS system because flying an airplane into the ground was not
what a pilot wanted to do. So you put that on a UAS and
hopefully the software worked, which it did, and the plane
didn't crash, and then you might get a test pilot to do that.
But my questions are more in line with privacy and how
Congress is going to move forward in the next 20 years,
especially when it comes to law enforcement. And law
enforcement has been part of the UAS discussion over the last
ten years especially. If you have a helicopter that is chasing
a bad guy and he flurs that area down there, we have decided
that that is okay, but if you used a UAS, we have decided that
that is probably not okay. And so the discussion is going to
go--and I can already see--Mr. Williams, you probably want to
answer this--is how do we go about that? How is the lawmaking?
How is the rulemaking going to be when we talk about UAS in the
law enforcement arena?
Mr. Guinn. I think that is a great question. Thank you. And
I think for law enforcement it is probably the easiest to solve
because you just simply say these are the rules for whether or
not you can engage with a UAS and whether or not that evidence
can be, you know, admitted into a hearing because obviously the
point of law enforcement is to stop crime and the only way to
stop crime is to be able to convict, and the only way to be
able to convict is to use admissible evidence, right? So I
think that one is pretty simple to say this is what is allowed,
this is not--what is not allowed. You have Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking, people vote on it, and decide.
I think the stickier point is the guy that is not being
regulated, the hobbyist who is, you know, using these systems
to peek into somebody's window, right? And there is a lot of
people that have those concerns and they are valid concerns.
But I would hearken this back to when they--when phone
manufacturers started putting cameras in cell phones. People
were very concerned about this. Samsung, as a matter of fact,
there was a rule that you could not have a camera-equipped
phone on the campus of Samsung, right? Now obviously every
single employee has a camera in their pocket.
And so I think that people realize with this new technology
that there is probably not tens of thousands of would-be
criminals just waiting for this perfect technology to be able
to spy on each other and I think this is a matter of education.
You know, what can you get at the Apple Store? Wireless baby
monitors and drop cams and things like that that could easily
be set up silently and very small and not noticeable in
somebody's house versus a loud, blinky, lit up drone flying out
the window.
The reason--I mean that is--you know, so I think it is just
a matter of education and a matter of saying, you know, let's
leverage existing anti-invasion of privacy laws and make sure
that those laws are, you know, applied to whatever technology
is being used to invade somebody's privacy, and there should be
consequences.
Mr. Knight. And I guess what I would follow up on is that
we already have an existing technology that does this, that
chases bad guys from the air. So I guess, Mr. Williams, you can
answer this. Would the FAA decide that they would follow the
same exact rules as maybe an air unit does in today's law
enforcement? Would they follow the same rules or would they be
able to do different things because, you know, a helicopter
can't fly like a UAS can, a helicopter can't do the things that
a small UAS can do. So that is--I think will be a question for
Congress is are we going to lax those rules to make it more
available for the troops on the ground, the cops on the ground
to use it in a different manner?
Mr. Williams. Well, one of the initiatives we took back in
2012 was to set up a special process called for in our
reauthorization of 2012 for law enforcement and we have been
working directly with individual law enforcement agencies
around the country. There are some that have had some
spectacular success with their aircraft and it is a priority
for my office to continue to support law enforcement use of
unmanned aircraft and find ways to approve their operation. And
I have two individuals who do that as there full-time jobs so
we very much support finding ways for law enforcement to use
unmanned aircraft safely.
Mr. Knight. Thank you.
Mr. Wynne. Yeah, Congressman, I just wanted to point out
that AUVSI, in an earlier effort, we did work with the
International Association of Chiefs of Police to develop
guidelines. I would be happy to submit those for the record.
Mr. Knight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Knight.
The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Newhouse, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
all of you for being here today to enlighten us about this very
exciting and important subject.
Being in agriculture, I do share the vision for the future
and how we can produce our crops more efficiently and
effectively.
But a couple questions, I think that, Dr. Lauber, if I
might start with you, I have heard a couple things, at least
two today that talks about the potential of the unmanned
industry as far as both public and privately, and then also the
importance of safety of integrating these unmanned systems into
the national airspace. And so speaking about that and the--and
realizing the speed some of these innovations are happening, it
certainly seems that safety should be a primary focus of what
we are talking about. And so I am curious about the investment
of harmonizing these systems with manned platforms,
specifically talking about collision avoidance systems in
general, perhaps specifically an ADS-B transponder, those kinds
of things. If you could talk a little bit about that, I would
be appreciative.
Dr. Lauber. I think that you have already addressed several
of the key considerations that we took up in our report.
Clearly in order to achieve success in integrating these
systems into the airspace and then realizing the potential
benefits of these systems, we have to do it in such a way that
safety is not adversely impacted. It will not fly, so to speak,
to introduce these things in such a way that it imposes or adds
risk to the system. Dr. Hansman has already outlined a couple
of the key risks that have to be understood, collision with
other aircraft and collision with the ground and trying to
systematically understand those things is very important. And
the FAA's effort to undertake a systematic analysis of risk as
it applies to these systems is an equally vital part of this.
You know, one of the top four and most difficult research
projects that we identified was what we called continuous
operation without human intervention, and in order for UASs to
do this, basically a UAS must have the capability of doing what
any manned aviation system does in the present environment. So
you have got to make up for all of the missing sensors, taking
people's eyeballs out of the vehicle. You have to somehow
substitute for that. The ability of humans to make decisions in
real time based on unexpected or unanticipated situations, you
have to be able to build that into the technology in order to
maintain the levels of risk that we have now. So these are of
fundamental importance as far as our study is concerned.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you.
And then just another question, I can't let the FAA off the
hook totally, in a recent interview in Business Insider
magazine, the CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos was asked a question
about when they might possibly be delivering packages using
these systems, and maybe you have read that article, but it
highlights some of the--perhaps some of the, lack of term,
overregulation in the R&D of--in the United States. He answered
a longer answer than I have time for but the technology is not
going to be the long pole; the long pole will be regulation.
And so, as was already talked about with, what, a dozen or 14
approvals already for commercial UAS, could you explain why
there may be hundreds or even thousands in other countries that
have been approved and here we lag behind so to speak?
Mr. Williams. Well, I am not sure I agree that we have
lagged behind. Yes, we don't have a specific rule for small
unmanned aircraft but we also have the most complex airspace in
the world, we have the largest number of general aviation
operators in the world, and it is a different regulatory and
legal framework here than in some of the other countries. Part
of my job is to interact with my counterparts from around the
world and understand what they are doing and benefit from their
experience so we are--and we are taking those things into
consideration as we move forward.
There is a--there are multiple paths for commercial
operations. We have two operators approved up in Alaska. We are
using certificated aircraft that have gone through the manned
certification process, adapted for use by--you know, for an
unmanned aircraft. Obviously all the rules for unmanned--for
manned aircraft didn't apply to them. But there are commercial
operations available that way in addition to this new way we
found through the Section 333 process that is designed to
bridge us to that regulatory environment we are trying to
achieve with the small unmanned aircraft rule.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Newhouse.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I don't know where to start. Are the permits issued
from the--there has been--let me understand this. I came in
late. So there has been 14 permits approved, is that right?
Mr. Williams. For small civil aircraft operators, yes. We
have two certificated aircraft that are operating commercially
in Alaska and there are a tremendous number of--over 700 public
aircraft operators, in other words government operators that we
have approved.
Mr. Weber. Are they based on size, Mr. Williams? A category
1 might be that you could fly up to something that is 200
pounds, 500 pounds, or is there a weight limit?
Mr. Williams. Well, the FAA in general takes a risk-based
approach to all our approvals and so we have--the reason there
are different levels of approval is there are different levels
of risk. So for these very small ones that we are now approving
through an exemption process, we are essentially--because of
their size, weight, and operating environment, approving--
basically waiving most of the manned aircraft rules so they
don't have to comply.
Mr. Weber. So what is a small weight?
Mr. Williams. Under 55 pounds was legislated in the--in our
2012 reauthorization--was defined as small under that
legislation.
Mr. Weber. Are there approved operators that get above 55
pounds?
Mr. Williams. Yes, sir. The--on the public aircraft
operations side they go up to--the Global Hawk aircraft that
both NASA and the DOD fly is approximately the same size as a
727.
Mr. Weber. Are they able to cross into Mexico and Canada
without violating airspace issues?
Mr. Williams. I believe the DOD flies around the world with
their unmanned aircraft and they are following the ICAO rules
for manned aircraft the same way as they do for----
Mr. Weber. What about private companies? Have they crossed
from the United States into Canada?
Mr. Williams. We currently don't have any approved private
companies that are operating across the borders, and there is a
committee--or what they call a panel has been formed at ICAO to
develop the international standards and recommended practices
for unmanned aircraft crossing between countries. So that
regulatory framework internationally is being developed.
Mr. Weber. So when a company gets approval, has--it is
permitted or licensed? What do you call it?
Mr. Williams. Well, we called the pilots--getting
certificated I guess would be the correct term.
Mr. Weber. Certificated, okay. Does that process of
certification get reviewed after one year, 2 years?
Mr. Williams. From a standpoint of--if the aircraft is
approved through a type certificate, then it is indefinite.
There is no restriction on that.
Mr. Weber. So----
Mr. Williams. For the processes that we are doing through
the exemptions, those are good for 2 years.
Mr. Weber. Okay. So if a UAV--if one of these units falls
out of the sky and hits a car on the ground, the liability
insurance--do people market insurance for these things?
Mr. Williams. Yes, sir. There is insurance available
through the multiple different insurance companies.
Mr. Weber. Okay. The little cameras on it--and I know, Mr.
Guinn, you talked about the high-definition camera. Are they
able to transmit back video back on the ground? Is that
standard--pretty much standard?
Mr. Guinn. Yes, absolutely. Even what Baptiste was flying
today from Parrot it transmits high-def video back to your
tablet.
Mr. Weber. Is it captured, for lack of a better term, in a
little black box? Does it record its own?
Mr. Guinn. There is a myriad of ways to do it so we can
actually record on the ground, at the same time we are
recording a much higher bit rate stream on the camera in the
air. So for later review if you need to zoom into an image and
check a power line or something like that----
Mr. Weber. But you said it had a computer on it. Does it
have the capability of storing that right on board?
Mr. Guinn. Absolutely. Yeah. Most of the cameras that are
on board have their own memory card slots and you are storing
it right on the memory card.
Mr. Weber. Has--and I know this is getting way out there,
what are people able--I mean you think about people hacking in
to different things. Are they going to be able to hack into
these and commandeer these?
Mr. Guinn. That is a good question. I think that, you know,
probably for Dr. Lauber a much better question.
Dr. Lauber. I will just add that cyber physical security is
one of the key issues that we identify in our report. It is a
concern and it needs to be addressed from the outset.
Mr. Weber. How many drone manufacturers are there? Ten,
twenty----
Mr. Guinn. At least hundreds.
Mr. Weber. Hundreds?
Mr. Guinn. Um-hum. Yes.
Mr. Weber. How many in the United States?
Mr. Guinn. Much less than anywhere else in the world, so I
mean----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Mr. Guinn. --3D Robotics, our company is the largest and
then that is----
Mr. Weber. One final question. You see planes fly over with
the number on the bottom of it, you can identify the number.
Are the drones numbered, identified?
Mr. Guinn. They are not today but that is one of the
considerations, especially for the heavier systems, to have a
tail number.
Mr. Williams. Well----
Mr. Weber. Okay. And let me go one more question if I may,
Mr. Chairman. So Google has a car that they can drive they say
wherever without--can you program one of these drones to go
somewhere and back and basically never have a--never touch it?
Mr. Guinn. Absolutely, yes, just right from your smartphone
if you need to.
Mr. Weber. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to
thank all the witnesses for showing up today and bringing their
great testimony. I had the opportunity to read the written
testimony. This is one of those days where another committee
meeting with votes required conflicted with the early part of
the schedule so some of us didn't get to see the demonstration
of your vehicle. And if the Chairman would indulge us, I would
be interested and I think some of the others would be
interested in seeing it.
Chairman Smith. Do we still have the vehicle and the pilot?
Mr. Guinn. Yeah, we can get it back up in the air in just
about 1 minute.
Mr. Posey. All right. That will work.
Chairman Smith. All right. Let's have another quick brief
demonstration but perhaps you can use more airspace this time,
too.
Mr. Guinn. He is going to get saucy with it, Baptiste.
Chairman Smith. And we will define haircuts within 2 feet
of someone's head, so if you can stay above that, that will
be----
Mr. Guinn. He is going to show you leaf blower mode with
your papers on your desk.
Chairman Smith. We didn't give you much advanced notice
here but----
Mr. Guinn. It will take him about 30 seconds or 45 seconds
to connect to the Wi-Fi network before he can take off.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Mr. Guinn. Did you have any quick questions in the
meantime?
Mr. Posey. Silence is golden in this committee, too.
Mr. Guinn. Okay. Perfect. Sounds good. Another fun fact is
that he will be piloting this drone from his iPhone, as well as
seeing a live HD feed right on his phone that is being
digitally stabilized, so pretty cool for 500 bucks.
Mr. Posey. We will all have one by the next time you come
and testify here.
Chairman Smith. Well----
Mr. Guinn. My kids got them for Christmas. And that is your
worst-case scenario, oh, my gosh----
Chairman Smith. You know, maybe----
Mr. Guinn. --drone crash. Drone crash.
Chairman Smith. Maybe we won't fly over people.
Mr. Guinn. Yeah, well, while he is flying over, you just do
this just in case.
Chairman Smith. Yeah.
Mr. Guinn. A fringe case is when you are asked to fly a
drone in 60 seconds in front of Congress.
Chairman Smith. Yeah.
Mr. Guinn. This is the kind of data we need to be
collecting out in the real world.
Chairman Smith. We need to make allowances for this. Tell
you what, just to take the pressure off of you, maybe we ought
to--okay.
Mr. Guinn. All right. Here we go.
Chairman Smith. Oh, there we go. Okay. Okay. Can you head
towards Mr. Posey and just keep it right out of--there we go.
Mr. Guinn. Leaf blower mode, here we go. Baptiste, can I
push it around a little bit, show its stability or do you want
to? Yes, in a very French and stylish way. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thanks again for that.
Mr. Posey, anything else?
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Okay. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr.
Hultgren, is recognized.
Mr. Hultgren. Well, thank you all for being here. This is
important and interesting and I really do appreciate the work
that you are doing and we do want to be helpful in making sure
we do this well.
With development and usage, I know of UAS expanding it
certainly is crucial that we understand the research our
government is doing, especially the research that will affect
the rulemaking process FAA is currently undergoing. From a
competitive standpoint, it is also crucial that we do this
right so that we are not encouraging businesses to move
elsewhere or denying access to researchers for the best, most
cost-effective tools that they need to do their work.
To be frank, sometimes I don't--I find the FAA's process to
be a little bit confusing and I agree certainly with the need
for public safety, that should always be our top goal, but
right now my fear is--in the name of safety I am afraid we are
stifling innovation and research opportunities by keeping
pretty harmless UASs out of the sky. At the same time, on an
unrelated topic but one that is important to me, I have been
trying to get answers from the FAA about their air traffic
controller hiring practices, which were recently changed, and I
believe could jeopardize the safety of airline passengers
across the country. And we are going to continue to try and get
answers there from the FAA.
But getting to questions, Mr. Williams, in early December
2014 the Association of American Universities and Association
of Public Land Grant Universities wrote a letter to FAA
stating, ``there is no timely workable mechanism for both
public and private universities to secure FAA approval to
conduct important research utilizing small unmanned aerial
systems, or sUAS, technology.'' I wondered, has FAA considered
issuing a rule to make it easier for universities to research
sUASs such as allowing universities to research sUASs on their
own property below 400 feet?
Mr. Williams. Well, we believe that our small rule will
address the needs of the universities. We also believe that--
and I have had discussions with several universities about
this, that they can move forward using our Section 333 process
to conduct their training, research, et cetera. And I have had
discussions with several universities about the possibility of
doing that and I think they are interested.
Mr. Hultgren. Okay. So in the meantime there is some
opportunities there but also you expect that the rule would
give them this ability to do some of the research that they are
looking to do?
Mr. Williams. Um-hum.
Mr. Hultgren. Mr. Williams, roughly how much interest is
there in the FAA test sites in terms of calls, meetings, and
website visits? How many organizations have actually used the
test sites?
Mr. Williams. I don't have the data with me, sir. We can
certainly get back to you----
Mr. Hultgren. Could you? That would be great. If you can
maybe get that back to us or to the Committee, that would be
terrific.
Mr. Wynne and Mr. Guinn, how would you organize the FAA UAS
test sites to best accommodate industry's R&D needs?
Mr. Wynne. Sir, we are--we want to get this word out. I
think the--you know, it is early days for the test sites so we
have got to make the--I think them more accessible. We have
discussed earlier the need for greater transparency, getting
the costs down, et cetera. I think there is also a need to
focus the research on the specific areas that we have been all
agreeing needs to be advanced, so I think those are the primary
elements that we have been looking at.
Mr. Hultgren. Do you have anything to add?
Mr. Guinn. I would take the six FAA test sites that exist
in remote locations and expand that to test sites that might be
on your company's private property that have, you know, strict
regulations around what you are allowed to do, geo-fenced. You
know, the drones with a geo-fence will not cross that barrier.
They have that level of intelligence today. So sub 400 feet,
you know, don't cross the geo-fence, remain line of sight, and
now that test site can be on your own company's property.
Mr. Hultgren. Are they--have you heard if they are open to
that, looking into that?
Mr. Guinn. Are you guys open to that?
Mr. Hultgren. Mr. Williams?
Mr. Williams. I believe that we have the experimental
process that could accommodate that type of operation. We have
experimental airworthiness certificates that we issue for
development, research, et cetera, that have been taken
advantage of by other companies to do exactly that. So that
process does remain available to anyone who chooses to use it.
Mr. Guinn. And I hear that a lot and that is the same--is
that the same airworthiness certificate that there has been 14
total granted so far in the country of all the people that want
to fly drones?
Mr. Williams. No, we have issued quite a few more
experimental certificates.
Mr. Guinn. So the Section 333, is that--that is what is
required for a private drone operator to be able to operate and
do test flights?
Mr. Williams. That is for commercial use. I mean the
experimental process is for the developmental use.
Mr. Guinn. Okay. So I guess I am talking about more for
private sector versus government. Is that----
Mr. Hultgren. Let me ask you this real quick because I am
running out of time, but on that, how do you see other
countries openness to doing this versus the United States, your
members? Have you seen similar openness here as in other
countries or do you see greater challenge? And I am out of
time.
Mr. Guinn. Well, there is a huge disparity, and I think in
other countries they just use a simple, you know, proportional
risk-based system to say if the drone is very lightweight and
being flown low altitude, line of sight, there is a lot less
regulation than a heavy drone being flown out of line of sight
at higher altitudes. So it is pretty logical.
Mr. Hultgren. It makes common sense. Yeah.
Mr. Guinn. Pretty logical.
Mr. Hultgren. Hopefully we can see what other countries
have been doing, doing safely, and we can do the same thing
here.
Thank you, Chairman, for your indulgence. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren.
And the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, is recognized
for questions.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was called away to another meeting so I missed a lot of
this. And thank you for the demonstration. I might ask for one
of those for Christmas myself.
A couple of things, I don't know if this has been asked,
but has anyone done an estimate of economic impact in the
context of what it would be worth to the U.S. economy for--if
we had the design and engineering done here in the United
States, if we do the construction here--manufacture, I should
say the manufacture of the--well, if you are doing UAS as--did
you say as large as a 727? Is that what you said?
Mr. Williams. [Nonverbal response.]
Mr. Palmer. So you would be doing design engineering and
construction. Has anyone looked at what the economic impact of
that might be?
Mr. Wynne. Yes, sir. The numbers that my organization have
put together in 2013 suggest that after we have access to the
national airspace the economic impact amounts to about $82
billion and 100,000 jobs, 100,000 plus jobs. Those numbers were
put together in 2013. We think they probably--we are going to
update those numbers. They probably understate the opportunity.
Mr. Palmer. Now, that is just the design, engineering,
construction? That is my question.
Mr. Wynne. And ancillary.
Mr. Palmer. So that would be the commercial use?
Mr. Wynne. No, that does not include commercial use.
Mr. Palmer. Okay.
Mr. Wynne. Profitability for other business----
Mr. Palmer. All right. All right. Are we losing any
technological advantage by the delays in approval for testing,
in other words, if this is--if this goes offshore?
Mr. Wynne. For the design and test, and those numbers I
think, yes, sir. I think that is an important distinction. The
markets that we--the end user community such as the insurance
industry, the agriculture community, et cetera, they will still
want to utilize the technology. The question is whether or not
they will be using American-built technology.
Dr. Lauber. And if I may add to that, during the course of
our study, we heard presentations from many in the industry.
Many of them told us that they could not conduct the kind of
research and development that they needed to do in the United
States and that they were taking their operations offshore.
And if I may briefly add in November I participated in a
meeting sponsored by the National Air and Space Academy in
France and one of the key things that came out of that
conference was the fact that the DGAC, the French FAA, in 2012
issued a risk-based set of regulations covering the very small
UASs, I think 2-1/2 kilos. They put those in place. As of the
time of the conference, which was in November, there were over
1,000 certified operators, more than 1,600 vehicles in French
airspace alone, and there were multiple manufacturers and
others participating in this. It was really quite interesting
to see this industry taking off there.
Mr. Guinn. And those numbers for France, that--France has
approximately 90 percent the populous of Texas, is that right?
So, yeah, we could probably get some pretty amazing economic
benefit for the whole country.
Mr. Palmer. Going back to the size of these things is, you
said a 727. Do you foresee a company like Federal Express or
one of the big commercial carriers utilizing these for high-
capacity transports?
Dr. Hansman. There is interest on the part of Federal
Express explicitly and several other particularly cargo
operators. It--this is going to be a long time in the future.
These capabilities will first come through in the military,
demonstrated, and the risk issues will be demonstrated. But 50
years from now, 60 years from now there will be UAVs. We can do
it technically today. The issue is to work out all the
operational details.
Mr. Palmer. And one of those operational details, I would
assume, would be ensuring that the guidance systems cannot be
hacked?
Dr. Hansman. Exactly. That is the comment that Dr. Lauber
talked about. One of the key research areas are the
cybersecurity issues particularly associated with the uplink--
command uplink.
Mr. Palmer. My last question has to do with utilizing these
for high altitude subspace, maybe even, you know, launch and
return capabilities, high altitude subspace for, say, weather
evaluations, things like that. Do you--is that something that
is on the drawing board?
Dr. Hansman. One of the biggest potential markets is
actually the use of these vehicles for high altitude relay for
basically internet on the surface. So you can have long
persistence vehicles at high altitude that can now act
effectively as satellites and be doing broadband distribution
to the ground.
Mr. Palmer. And I guess my B part of the last question
would be, for instance, an unmanned flight to the International
Space Station, would you--do you foresee having the capability
for launch and return for a mission like that?
Dr. Hansman. Well, we do today. That is--we have unmanned
vehicles that are flying cargo missions to the Space Station
today.
Mr. Palmer. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. And thank you, Mr. Palmer.
And let me thank all of our witnesses today. This has been
a particularly interesting and informative panel. We wish Mr.
Williams, however, the FAA had told us when they might have the
rule ready, but with that possible exception, I appreciate all
your contributions.
And this has really been helpful, I think, to members of
the Science Committee and we look forward to hearing from you
all in the future and to waiting and watching to see how the
development goes with the integration and with the use of
drones both in the private sector and in the commercial sector
as well.
So thank you all again for being here.
[Whereupon, at 4:58 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Ed Waggoner
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Mr. James Williams
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. John Lauber
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Mr. Brian Wynne
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Mr. Colin Guinn
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. John Hansman
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Statement submitted by Represenative Donna R. Edwards
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Letters submitted by Chairman Lamar S. Smith
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Letter submitted by Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]