Drone News & Articles

Earlier this month, Drone Industry Insights (DII) released its drone industry report, revealing Chinese drone giant DJI to be the top commercial drone manufacturer. The company is closely followed by Chinese company Yuneec and France-headquartered Parrot Drones.

The report stated that DJI is no doubt the leader when it comes to commercial drone manufacturing even with the recent attacks on the company from countries and other manufacturers. It’s estimated that DJI owns between 70% and 80% of the worldwide commercial sector.

In second place is Yuneec, which started by creating consumer-focused drones and then transitioned into the commercial market when it saw the value of doing so. Although you don’t see the company in the news often, its H520 and Typhoon H are some of the best-selling drones in the world.

Finishing off the top three positions is French drone manufacturer Parrot Drones. Parrot started by making more consumer-level drones, with its mini-drones being some of the most popular. The company then transitioned into the commercial space with its Bebop drone and later the ANAFI lineup. Despite facing a few difficult years, the company has been able to come back with additional reinforcement after announcing the “Made in USA” ANAFI USA drone.

Overview

When it comes to commercial drone hardware, Chinese companies are in the lead by a substantial margin, with US companies taking over the dual-use drone market. AeroVironment is the top of the list, with Boeing’s Insitu, and Israeli Aeronautics following closely behind. DJI, Yuneec, and Parrot could all enter the dual-use list depending on the number of sales the companies see.

Although many companies have popped up all over the world, DJI remains undefeated when it comes to the market share and large range of products it produces every year. If you need a drone for photography, filmmaking, mapping, surveying, inspections, agricultural spraying, or search-and-rescue, DJI has you covered. It’s something that other newer companies will struggle with for years to come.

Written by Josh Spires | 16 Oct 2020

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services has warned drone owners in the Kooralbyn area to keep their devices out of the sky.

It comes as crews battle to contain a large bushfire in the Scenic Rim region, south-west of Brisbane, first reported on Monday.

Significantly, the announcement comes after Australian Aviation reported in August that a rogue drone caused firefighting planes and helicopters to be grounded as they battled to contain a blaze threatening homes in a small Northern Territory town.

NT Police superintendent Daniel Shean said the drone could have prevented firefighters from containing the blaze and urged owners to follow current regulations that specifically prohibits a drone being flown in a way that could be hazardous to an aircraft, or higher than 120 metres above ground level.

In April, Australian Aviation reported how the number of ‘near encounters’ between drones and manned aircraft has doubled in three years – with 194 such occurrences in 2019, up from just 87 in 2016.

The rise in reported cases is likely due to the explosion in drone ownership, with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau now estimating there are at least 50,000, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of remote piloted crafts in Australia.

While one has yet to cause an accident, the numbers will raise concerns that a more dangerous incident in future is inevitable. In Canada in 2017, for instance, a drone hit a commercial aircraft and damaged its wing, while in the UK a device flew directly over the wing of an Airbus 319 coming into land at London Gatwick.

Earlier this month, CASA appealed to the public to find a “rogue” drone that was spotted flying close to an aircraft as it was approaching to land at Sydney Airport.

The plane’s pilots spotted the one-metre device from the cockpit at about 1,200 metres on Monday, 20 July.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority said the object was described as blue and possibly a quadcopter type – meaning it has four rotors. It was spotted in the Granville/North Parramatta area between 2pm and 3pm.

Written by Adam Thorne | 14 Oct 2020

The word ‘drone’ might conjure up the kind of dystopian imagery you’d find in a science fiction novel. But the idea that the world will one day be overrun by super-intelligent lethal robots that fly isn’t necessarily accurate.

UNSW Associate Professor Adam Fish, Scientia Fellow in the School of the Arts and Media, says the drone often gets a bad name.

“Most people associate the drone with military intervention … robots that automatically kill people,” he says. “But I think that you’d be more likely to have your life saved by a drone than to be killed by one.”

The military application of drones is just one application of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the associate professor says. And while military drones are still a serious concern, the technology has more capacity for doing good than evil, he says.

“It’s the most spectacular application of the technology that gets a lot of press,” he says. “But drones are great for situational awareness [and] real-time assessment in humanitarian crises, for the delivery of medical assistance too.

“I think people will increasingly identify that drones are safe, affordable, effective technologies with some impactful applications for the well-being of other species. I’d like to imagine that these important conservation advances would be celebrated over the more terrifying applications of drones.”

Taking conservation to the skies

One of the most promising applications of the drone is in the field of environmental conservation. In line with reduced funding in the field, the drone can be flown by one person with very little training at a relatively cheap one-off cost.

“[For] many of the environmental problems that we’re trying to address, from pollution to extinction, drones provide an affordable, safe, practical platform,” A/Prof. Fish says.

The associate professor says drones are effective for raw scientific data collection beyond what a human is capable of.

The drone can potentially automate the ability to scan and document landscapes more quickly and accurately, A/Prof. Fish says. It can also use different sensors to augment its view, like heat-sensitive systems, to go beyond what a human being can see.

“For example, in instances of coral bleaching…drones can help oceanographers get a sense of the species range of somewhere vast like the Great Barrier Reef. Drones, aided by artificial intelligence, are also very effective in counting endangered species like certain breeds of penguins, seals, and whales,” he says.

“We’re fortunate to have charismatic megafauna like cetacean in Australia, which we can monitor with drones to collect information about viruses, the hormones in their bodies which can inform our understandings of their pregnancy, and level of pollution they’ve encountered in their migratory practices.”

Drones can also be used in conservation as a security mechanism, and to intervene in illegal ocean activities such as poaching. The view from up above also helps to inform the movement of ships and document illegal poaching operations or clandestine pollution, A/Prof. Fish says.

However, that’s not to say that conservation will be entirely automated in the future. Conservationists are still undecided amongst themselves about whether the drone is better than the human eye.

“A human is still a very useful remote sensor – our field of vision can be broader than the camera, as is our ability to adapt on the fly…ideally we can have both,” he says.

“But when you consider the economic climate for the funding of science and conservation…cost-wise, safety-wise, it makes sense, and I think we’ll see more drones replace manned-flight in helicopters and the like.”

Airspace: activism and regulation

A/Prof. Fish says there is also the potential for the drone to encourage more citizen science. The smooth gimbal-enabled drone shot [gimbals stabilise drones in relation to the horizon] can also be an essential tool for advocacy.

“It produces an evocative spectacle,” he says. “There are a lot of shoreline citizen scientists already trying to identify humpbacks with binoculars and cameras – so if we had drones as part of that citizen assemblage, that would be interesting.”

While drones do need some regulations, the associate professor says heavy-handed regulatory approaches to drones constitute a significant concern and threaten to inhibit experimental applications of drones within conservation activism.

“New regulations which require all drones to be registered are saying to the citizen drone pilot, ‘we’re watching you, we’re concerned with what you’re doing’,” he says. “That might inhibit more experimental, playful and politically driven journalistically-motivated applications.”

Ultimately, he says it’s the responsibility of government to regulate the drone appropriately and to support conservation efforts better financially.

“We also don’t want to live in a world in which science and conservation are solely the responsibility of private citizens; the state should also be involved,” he says. “At the same time, we don’t want to be in a place where scientists who only get approval from regulatory bodies are the only people able to use drones.

“What we really need is to have some of our taxes pay for proper scientists with healthy budgets and proper ecological management strategies – in this world, drones can play a meaningful part.”

Written by Ben Knight | 16 Oct 2020

Scientists have long deployed drones to do everything from counting caribou to collecting whale snot. Now the flying machines are helping to rescue animals as climate change takes an increasingly deadly toll on wildlife.  

For the past year, a California videographer named Douglas Thron has chased climate catastrophes around the world, piloting drones outfitted with infrared cameras and spotlights to help find survivors of hurricanes and firestorms whose frequency and intensity are growing with rising temperatures. After Thron locates the animals, wildlife rescuers can move them to safety.

“The potential for these drones to save animals, whether wild or domestic, and help in their recovery is just huge,” says Thron.

As a young environmental activist in the 1990s, Thron took to the skies in an old Cessna single-prop and other planes more than a hundred times to photograph the logging of ancient redwood forests in California.

Thron, 50, has worked as an aerial cinematographer in recent years, shooting high-end homes for real estate firms and wildlife for documentary filmmakers. After a Category Five hurricane slammed into the Bahamas in September 2019, Thron volunteered with conservation group Sea Shepherd to bring relief supplies to the devastated islands. He also brought his drones.

Thron flies two drones for animal rescues. Both are equipped with infrared cameras, spotlights, and high-intensity zoom lenses. “You can count whiskers on a cat from hundreds of feet away and not disturb it,” he says. The technology is ideal for locating stranded animals.

As Thron dispatched drones over the Bahamas to document the disaster wrought by Hurricane Dorian, he discovered scores of stranded dogs among the rubble. When Thron spotted one, he pinpointed the animal’s location with GPS so volunteers could rescue it. The sheer scale of the destruction, though, meant dogs could be difficult to see, so he attached an infrared camera to the drone to detect their body heat.

Thron stayed in the Bahamas until December when bushfires ignited across Australia, eventually incinerating an England-sized swath of the country. He packed up two drones and flew to Sydney, where he reached out to groups like Humane Society International and WWF to offer help rescuing injured wildlife. One of his first stops was Kangaroo Island in South Australia, where firestorms wiped out half its population of some 50,000 koalas.

The fires killed or displaced nearly 3 billion animals nationwide, according to the most recent scientific estimates, a number that includes dozens of vulnerable species, such as the koala. “You couldn’t walk 10 meters without coming across a dead koala or wallaby,” says Evan Quartermain, program director for Humane Society International (HSI) in Australia, who worked with Thron on Kangaroo Island. 

For several weeks, Thron and wildlife rescuers fanned out across the island at night to scan the charred landscape with the drone’s infrared camera. When a koala-shaped heat signature appeared on the controller’s video screen, Thron activated the drone’s spotlight and zoomed in with another camera to verify the animal’s identity and assess its condition. 

Thron and his drone made a life-and-death difference for koalas, according to Quartermain. The surviving koalas were spread out over thousands of acres of eucalyptus plantations and risked starvation as they clung to lifeless trees. “We needed to be able to quickly scan areas to either rescue remaining koalas or mark them as clear so we could move on to another segment,” he says. Rescuers captured injured koalas and took them to rehabilitation centers for treatment.  

Impressed with Thron’s ability to locate koalas, environmental group WWF Australia funded his search-and-rescue drone missions in the states of New South Wales and Queensland as bushfires engulfed the region.

He was also able to help wombats. The furry marsupials, which live in underground burrows, were thought to have largely survived the fires but then faced starvation when they emerged into a habitat denuded of vegetation. Once wombats were found, volunteers set up food and water stations for the animals.

When rains finally extinguished the fires, activists began the monumental task of determining how much of Australia’s unique native wildlife survived. Stuart Blanch, a senior manager for land clearing and restoration at WWF Australia, noted that 18 million hectares burned in southeast Australia as well as in parts of eastern, western, and northern Australia. “There’s just not enough people to survey that safely,” he says. “We wanted to see how we can use drone-based surveys in monitoring wildlife as we transition to recovery.” 

Backed by WWF, Thron spent months flying drones over devastated landscapes, where he once found a lone koala in a burned-out forest. He says at times, though, he’d search for six hours, cover a territory the size of San Francisco, and not find a single living animal. “It was depressing.” 

HSI has since acquired a drone of its own and Quartermain has obtained his pilot’s license. At WWF, Blanch aims to develop protocols to standardize the use of drones for wildlife rescue and recovery when the next climate-driven disaster inevitably strikes. 

Drones are being deployed for other uses in wildfire-ravaged areas. One Australian company, Dendra Systems, sends the machines to survey burned forests and re-seed them.

“You can count whiskers on a cat from hundreds of feet away and not disturb it”

After more than six months in Australia rescuing wildlife, Thron returned to California in August. But his trip home was soon cut short by the latest wave of climate-related disasters. When Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana, he jumped on a plane and began flying his drone over flattened homes in the city of Lake Charles to rescue cats and dogs. Next, he flew to Oregon, where wildfires incinerated the town of Talent and left pets lost in the ashes.

His drone rescues have been a self-funded passion project, supplemented by donations. But he recently struck a deal with documentary media company CuriosityStream that provides some pay and covers his expenses for a series titled “Doug to the Rescue” that will premier in early 2021. 

“I knew not only could I save the individual animals but also generate the publicity to get people aware of the potential of this technology,” says Thron. 

Written by Todd Woody | 1 Oct 2020

EHang Holdings Limited (Nasdaq: EH), the world’s leading autonomous aerial vehicle (“AAV”) technology platform company, has unveiled the EHang 216L.  EHang’s heavy lift drone is ideal for short-to-medium-haul air logistics – both in cities and rural areas.

The EHang 216L can carry a payload of 200kg – about 440 pounds – which EHang says is, as far as they know,  the largest payload for multi-rotor AAVs.

“The EHang 216L is another good application of its world-leading AAV technology platform in addressing real market needs such as logistics,” says an EHang press release.  EHang has been agile in finding applications for their signature passenger drones that can be implemented today, before infrastructure and regulation to support urban air mobility (UAM) is widely available.  In parallel with developing ground-breaking passenger drone applications in China, such as aerial sightseeing tours, they’re developing applications including firefighting, ambulance drones, search and rescue and cargo delivery.

“…the EHang 216L opens up more commercial opportunities for the company in various urban and rural short-to-medium-haul aerial logistics use cases that require frequent and point-to-point flight tasks,” says the press release.  The EHang 216L could be used by the energy industry to resupply offshore oil rigs autonomously, for logistics in international ports, or for a wide variety of other applications.

“According to Frost & Sullivan, the urban air mobility (“UAM”) global logistics market could reach US$46 billion by 2023 (an estimated CAGR of 740%),” says the EHang press release. “China is projected to be the largest regional market in the world in 2023, accounting for 45% of the global logistics UAM market.”

“We’re thrilled to unveil another new version of AAV following the EHang 216F,” says EHang’s Founder, Chairman and CEO Hu Huazhi. 

“The EHang 216L will meet the demand for heavy-lift AAVs for short-to-medium-haul aerial logistics. With increasing payloads and flight ranges, aerial logistics is expected to be one of the initial commercial applications of AAVs as it has higher efficiencies but lower emissions than the conventional ground transportation. The launch of the EHang 216L also complements our existing aerial logistics AAV portfolio, which consists of the medium-sized Falcon B and the small-sized GD 2.0X. It also enables us to meet customer needs in various aerial logistics use cases.”

Written by Miriam McNabb | 30 Sept 2020

Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) officially launched its drone registration and pilot accreditation requirements for commercial drone pilots. You have until January 28, 2021, if you want to legally fly drones for business in Australia.

If you are caught without a registered drone, you will be subject to a fine of up to AUD$11,100. You will also receive a maximum fine of AUD$11,100 if you aren’t accredited, totaling a maximum fine of AUD$22,200.

If you are flying or planning to fly commercially and use your drone in the following ways, it likely means you are flying commercially and will have to register your drone and become an accredited pilot.

• Selling photos or videos are taken from a drone
• Inspecting industrial equipment, construction sites, or infrastructure
• Monitoring, surveillance or security services
• Research and development
• Any drone activities on behalf of your employer or business

If your drone fits into one of the following groups, this means you will need to register your drone and become an accredited pilot as well.

• 250 g or less (micro RPA)
• More than 250 g but no more than 2 kg (very small RPA)
• More than 2kg but no more than 25 kg and you only fly it over your own land (small RPA).

Drone registration

If you are flying commercially or its a part of your job, you need to register your drone before the January 28, 2021 deadline. If you aren’t planning to fly your drone or are flying for fun you don’t need to register it. As the registration came into effect recently, CASA is allowing pilots to register their drones for free until June 30, 2021. The registration lasts for 12 months.

Pilot accreditation

To fly a drone commercially, you are also required to become an accredited pilot. You do not need to become accredited if you currently hold a remote pilot license (RePL) or are flying for fun. This will last for three years and is a short free online test.

How to register and become accredited?

Registering your drone and becoming an accredited pilot is easy. Head over to the myCASA website, create an account or log in, and hit the RPA operator accreditation button to begin the process. To be accredited, you will need the following:

• To be 16 or older (an accredited is required to watch you while flying)
• Proof of identity, such as an Australian passport, Australian birth or citizenship certificate, or ImmiCard
• A myCASA account
• An aviation reference number (ARN)
• Make, model, serial number, weight, and type of drone
• Download and/or print your certificate of registration from myCASA.

Written by Josh Spires | 1 Oct 2020

A man in East Bay, California, is using his DJI Matrice drone to find pets lost during natural disasters, including the wildfires burning across the state. Douglas Thron is using the infrared camera on the drone to spot the animals with ease from above.

Thron usually spends his days filming drone footage for companies such as National Geographic and Discovery Channel. These days, he finds himself assisting rescue groups during natural disasters and helping owners reunite with their pets.

During Hurricane Dorian, Thron flew over to the Bahamas to help with rescue efforts while filming the destruction caused by the hurricane with his drone. While filming he noticed animals walking around in the rubble but were hard to see due to the amount of it lying around, Thorn told ABC 7 News.

“It was the most unbelievable thing I’ve seen. While I was filming that destruction, I was seeing animals walking around through the debris but they were hard to find because the debris piles were about thirty feet tall.”

Thorn bought an infrared camera, attached it to the drone and got to finding the animals straight away.

“I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful that feeling is when you can bring that little animal back. Of course, that would be the most valuable thing that you could get back.”

Thorn found that the best time to go out and hunt for the animals was between 10 pm and 4 am as the ground is cool by then and better contrasts with the warm body heat of the animals. When discovered, Thorn then tells rescue crews where the animal is, and they shine a light on it and go rescue it, eventually reuniting it with its owner.

The work has seen Thorn travel across the world to rescue animals, including pets and wild. Thorn was over in Australia during the catastrophic bushfires rescuing Koalas and other native animals that were stuck in trees or un-burnt sections of land.

Thorn was also rescuing animals after the hurricane in Louisiana, wildfires in Northern California and Oregon, saving as many animals as possible along the way. You can help Thorn by donating to his GoFundMe campaign, allowing him to continue to travel around the world to rescue animals in disaster locations.

Written by Josh Spires | 1 Oct 2020

In a world’s first, DJI’s Matrice 300 has autonomously surveyed two underground Australian mine sites testing 3D LiDAR technology. The new drone technology was being tested by Emesent which has been developing its simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) autonomous flight system Hovermap.

The two drone flights took place at the Round Oak Minerals’ Mount Colin underground copper mine in northern Queensland, Australia.

The flights mark a milestone for Emesent who provided its Hovermap software and LiDAR hardware for use with the newly released Matrice 300 drone.

A flight like this above ground wouldn’t usually be a big deal as there aren’t as many space restrictions and you have daylight to help with capturing data and flying safely. The fact that the drone is able to fly underground with very little to no light without crashing is impressive.

Below is a short video of the drone in action capturing data with the onboard LiDAR scanner. The drone is flying autonomously and is able to make its way around the dimly light mine with no issue. The data captured by the drone is also shown in the video.

Autonomy and drones

Over the years, drones have slowly become smarter with the introduction of automated flight modes and more importantly autonomous flight. DJI and Skydio are two players in the consumer and commercial market who have been leading the way with the introduction of drones capable of doing more every year.

DJI and Skydio are taking vastly different approaches to autonomous flight with DJI taking the less autonomous approach making it more of a pilot aid keeping the drone pilot in control of the drone for the majority of the time whereas Skydio has almost removed the need for a human to pilot the drone thanks to high-resolution cameras that pick up a full 360 image of the world allowing the drone to fly itself and dynamically avoid objects.

Written by Josh Spires | 20 Aug 2020

In the space of a little over a week, there were two high-profile drone incursions into public events in the United States — plus an alleged near-miss with Air Force One. All three incidents were troubling and left social media commenters complaining about drones. Given there will always be the odd rogue pilot who ignores the rules, what can be done? As it turns out, plenty.

The two Major League baseball incidents surprised us. In both cases, the drones were hovering over the field, effectively shutting down play. Athletes at the Target Stadium in Minneapolis tried to bean the drone with a baseball but missed. In that event, the drone flew away, and the authorities never found who was responsible. In the second incident, officers were able to find the pilot, a 16-year-old who received a pretty good lecture and who will also be having a chat or two with someone from the Federal Aviation Administration. As for Air Force One? The Air Force is currently investigating.

A better way?

Sensitive venues are worth protecting. And though DJI does bundle No Fly Zones with its software, there are ways around those restrictions. Plus, there are plenty of drones in the air that have no such geofencing restrictions.

So what should stadiums like Boston’s Fenway Park or Target Stadium in Minneapolis do?

Detect

A growing number of systems are available for the remote detection and even disruption of UAS. DJI’s Aeroscope system, for example, can detect DJI drones from a considerable distance (up to 50km, or nearly 40 miles). In fact, not only can the Aeroscope detect DJI drones, it can tell you the model, location, and trajectory – plus the location of the person operating the controller – all within about two seconds of detecting the signal. This system has been used on multiple occasions in Canada and the US – and is especially useful for one-off events like air shows.

In fact, incidents at airports, prisons, and other sensitive locations have prompted the creation of technologies that can disrupt drone communication signals and even take a UAS out of the air.

At the high end of the spectrum are weapons like this Lockheed Martin system, designed for the US military to take down larger drones using a powerful laser beam:

Other systems

Of course, systems like Lockheed Martin’s would be hugely expensive. A civilian enterprise likely would not be allowed to even purchase such a system. So that’s out when it comes to venues like Major League Baseball stadiums. But there are other options available – and a growing number of locations where this type of technology could be put to use.

Detect and assess

Figuring out early there’s a drone in the air that could pose an issue is half the battle. There are technologies, like the aforementioned Aeroscope, that can quickly locate drones or pilots in the area. An early warning offers a huge advantage over simply reacting once a drone is visually spotted. These technologies can also pinpoint the pilot’s location as well. In the case of Bravo Zulu, the company employs radar, Radio Frequencies, and even video for detection.

Based on what these technologies pick up, Bravo Zulu uses AI to help assign a threat score. What size is the drone? At what speed is it approaching? What’s the payload? Does it appear to pose a threat? If so, and based on the data, how much of a threat? And what should be done?

Respond appropriately (and legally)

The response will depend on the type of threat the drone is deemed to pose, and also the location. If you’re on a cargo ship in international waters and the drone is being sent by likely pirates to probe your defenses, you’re going to have significantly more leeway in your response than if you’re detecting a drone in downtown Boston. There are laws, and with good reason, that prohibit randomly jamming frequencies in most countries.

So the first level of response might be simply identifying the drone, locating the pilot, and dispatching security to talk to the person. In discussing other options, we’ll make the assumption that these hypothetical scenarios are taking place in a location where the following actions are legal. And – even in situations where they may not strictly be legal – there would certainly be circumstances where using these mitigation techniques would be justified.

Jamming

Jamming the C2 (Command & Control) link will usually force the drone to auto-land. This response is baked into most drones as a safety feature. Once the signal is disrupted, it will simply enter that auto-landing mode and come down from its current position or Return to Home. If the latter, it can be followed to the ground.

Jamming comes in a couple of flavours: Broadband and narrow band. Bravo Zulu uses the more focussed narrow band method, which is also less likely to interfere with anything other than the specifically targeted frequency bandwidth.

GPS denial, spoofing

Messing with the drone’s ability to maintain its GPS lock is also an effective technique. In fact, even if someone has pre-programmed the drone to carry out a mission – messing with the GPS will stop a drone in its tracks. There are other techniques, such as spoofing/hacking/injecting – all of which are methods to allow the ‘protector’ to fool the drone into accepting a new command, such as a change or course or immediate landing.

Ballistics

The final resort is blunt: Use a physical means of getting the drone out of the air. These could include a net, projectile, interceptor drone, or even a laser (similar to the Lockheed Martin system). This approach often comes with concerns over collateral damage (such as a drone dropping out of the sky), and is the least likely approach in an urban setting. However, it remains an option – and may even be a preferred option in certain locations or scenarios.

NFZs

DJI’s geo-fencing already does quite a good job of preventing people who don’t know any better from flying places where they shouldn’t. But there are ways to get around that system – especially for someone truly committed.

And, as we’ve seen at two Major League Baseball games in August, a person with a consumer drone can cause a significant incident – even if they were not acting with malicious intent.

As for those who might be considering a similar flight? As we’ve just seen, there are an increasing number of tools that can track you down without your knowledge. There’s a good chance a perpetrator would be caught – and a very good chance that a person caught would be charged.

As they should be.

Written by Scott Simmie | 24 Aug 2020

Drone owners in Australia will soon need to register their aircrafts under laws first introduced back in 2019.

With drones increasing in popularity in recent years, Australia’s aviation regulator, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), has introduced new measures designed to keep budding drone flyers, and any people they’re flying near, safe.

The news laws mean anyone using a drone for commercial use, research, training and community service will need to register their crafts and be accredited by CASA.

The registration and accreditation portals will open from 30 September but a deadline of 28 January 2021 means you’ll be able to continue flying without them for a few more months.

If you’re just flying your drone for fun or on your own land, there’s good news. You’ll eventually also need to register but it’s a few years off — that registration portal opens March 2022 and is only a requirement by 30 May 2022.

For everyone else, registration is free for now, thankfully, and lasts for 12 months so it seems a fair ask given anyone can purchase themselves a chunky flying object.

The only exemption CASA will provide once those deadlines pass is for drones weighing under 250 grams or those only operated within the house.

How to register your drone

If the new rules apply to you and your little flying machine, registration and accreditation are relatively simple.

You’ll first need to get yourself an aviation reference number (ARN) through CASA, which requires 100 points of identification.

Once you’ve linked it to your CASA account, you’ll have to undertake a short safety video and an online quiz about the new drone rules covering safety and the law.

For those using drones larger than two kilograms for commercial purposes, you’ll need to apply for a remote pilot licence (RePL). In order to get this licence, you’ll need to go through a certified training provider for specialist training but won’t need to bother with accreditation.

With more drones zipping through our skies, the rules ultimately provide a few more assurances. After all, you don’t want a 12-year-old kid flinging a one-kilogram drone around your backyard without a care in the world.

Written by Sarah Canales | 9 Sep 2020