The opening of US air space to drones has the potential to create a $12bn industry
October 10, 2013 Leave a comment
October 8, 2013 6:54 pm
Technology: Eyes in the sky
By Geoff Dyer
The opening of US air space to drones has the potential to create a $12bn industry
Rodney Brossart, who owns a 3,000-acre cattle farm in North Dakota, is an unlikely trendsetter. In 2011, six cows from a neighbouring property wandered on to his farm. When he allegedly refused to return the cattle and barred law enforcement from entering his property, police asked that a Predator drone from a local air force base fly over his farm to see if Mr Brossart was armed.Mr Brossart faces trial next month on charges of theft after a court threw out his claim that he had been subjected to a “warrantless search”. But he has already made history as the first American to be arrested on US soil with the help of a drone.
Armed with Hellfire missiles, drones have become the symbol of the US global war on terror. Operating a drone in the US requires a special permit that is issued sparingly. However, Congress has decided that from 2015 drones should be given access to domestic airspace.
For supporters, the introduction of drones into domestic airspace is equivalent to the launch of the automobile or the internet – a powerful technology with the capacity to transform dozens of industries and reshape ideas about distance. They see drones, with a potential market value of $12bn by 2023, as the coming of age of robotics. “It is like the introduction of the computer in the 1980s – it is on that level,” says Peter Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution. “It has so many different uses, so many different applications but also so many complex questions.”
To critics, the advent of domestic drones brings the threat of a new type of surveillance – an exaggerated version of the technology-led snooping that has been dramatised by Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency. “The greatest threat to the privacy of Americans is the drone and the use of the drone and the very few regulations that are on it today,” says Dianne Feinstein, a leading Democratic senator.
Drones – or unmanned aerial systems as the industry calls them – come in all shapes and sizes. The Predators and Global Hawks operated by the military are almost as big as a jet fighter. By contrast, Aerovironment’s Nano Hummingbird has a wingspan of 16cm, while Harvard has been developing an insect-sized flying robot called the Robobee.
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