American Robotics and FAA to advance BVLOS drone operations

According to American Robotics, a developer of fully-automated drone systems, enabling expanded BVLOS operations is critical for the industry to truly take off.

Advance BVLOS drone operations

American Robotics will now join the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to advance BVLOS drone operations at the request of the FAA. The drone manufacturer says it will provide recommendations to normalise safe, viable and scalable BVLOS flights.

Also read: American Robotics and SARA automate BVLOS drone operations

American Robotics was the first company to be authorised by the FAA for highly automated operations with no humans on-site. This FAA approval came in January 2021.

According to Reese Mozer, co-founder and CEO of American Robotics, the FAA approval was an important and significant step forward for the commercial drone community as a whole. “We look forward to sharing our insights with the broader commercial drone community, and the FAA, and providing commercial users better access to the data and insights that are only accessible through an automated drone,” Mozer said.

Commercial drone industry growing quickly

American Robotics states the commercial drone industry is growing quickly, but enabling expanded BVLOS operations is critical for the industry to truly take off. Automated BVLOS operations are particularly important to bringing the commercial sectors into the drone economy, including agriculture verticals.

According to the drone developer, key to these operations is the use, and FAA acceptance, of new and innovative safety technologies, such as long-range detect and avoid (DAA) sensors and software-enabled automation.