The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has unveiled the locations of planned test sites for integrating unmanned aerial vehicles into the national airspace, selecting six out of more than two dozen proposals for the coveted sites.
The winners announced earlier this week were University of Alaska, state of Nevada, Griffiss International Airport in New York, North Dakota’s Department of Commerce, Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The FAA received numerous proposals from locations in two dozen states. The FAA said in choosing the locations it wanted to reflect a broad diversity of geography and climate to better inform the research on the operation of unmanned aerial systems in a variety of environments. Other factors were location of ground infrastructure, research needs, airspace use, safety, aviation experience and risk, the agency said. For example, Griffiss was chosen because it can help the FAA learn about flying unmanned systems in the air traffic heavy northeast corridor.
“In totality, these six test applications achieve cross-country geographic and climatic diversity and help the FAA meet its UAS research needs,” the FAA said Monday. FAA chief Michael Huerta said a key aspect of using the sites will be to ensure UAVs can be safely integrated into the airspace.
“Safety continues to be our first priority as we move forward with integrating unmanned aircraft systems into U.S. airspace,” Huerta said. “We have successfully brought new technology into the nation’s aviation system for more than 50 years, and I have no doubt we will do the same with unmanned aircraft.”
Opening skies to UAVs has a host of applications, including law enforcement, firefighting and other public safety issues, or infrastructure, environmental and agricultural monitoring, assessing the impact of a natural disaster, or even to carry cargo. It is also a potentially lucrative opportunity for UAV makers who have been mostly dependent on the military for business.
The FAA also said the winning sites were required to demonstrate measures to protect individual privacy, a major concern among critics of the integration plan who believe small UAVs could be used for snooping or other potential violations of civil liberties. The agency said all test sites will be required to comply with federal, state and local privacy laws, publish privacy policies spelling out image use and retention, and allow public input into mandated annual policy reviews.
The FAA released the solicitation for the test sites last year as part of the requirements under the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. Among its many provisions is the goal of developing a comprehensive plan by 2015 for the integration of UAVs.