Why the word "drone" is scaring neighbors, creating bad legislation, and blocking an economic boom.

Sensationalist coverage and fabricated illustrations have cemented the word "drone" as a weapon in the public psyche. But it may not be too late to change public opinion about the technology behind the word.

A few years ago, a colleague and her husband, an ex-helicopter pilot, realized a tectonic shift was disrupting industries in which they had devoted entire careers.

This disruption had a passing resemblance to what happened to other American industries. The hard work once done by skilled, human hands was now being automated by the calculating actuators of a machine.

Automation had long since dominated the appliance, automotive, and electronics industries. But this was a brand new territory – aviation.

The reduced price and size, and the increased reliability and capability of processors, sensors and batteries meant unmanned aviation had been unleashed. A nouveau DIY revolution meant that basements and garages were once again incubating nascent technology, just as they did in the 1970s when the personal computer was being developed.

The silver lining is that the cost of search and rescue, disaster relief, monitoring wildlife, guarding endangered animals from being poached, and even medication delivery to underserved populations all could be slashed.

Like many other small startups in the unmanned aviation industry, my friend and her husband saw an opportunity. And despite criticism of slow progress on regulations, the Federal Aviation Administration also sees it. The FAA estimates that the market for commercial unmanned aerial systems will eventually reach $90 billion.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicles and Systems International (AUVSI) believes there will be an economic impact of $13.6 billion within 3 years that unmanned aircraft are integrated into the national airspace.

Where to start? What better way to get acquainted to the industry than attend one of the premier industry conference in the nation, hosted by AUVSI?

She learned about new applications for unmanned aircraft. She listened to a UAV operator who used his homemade robotic aircraft to assess flood damage in Thailand. The information gathered from the aerial vehicle allowed the government to make decisions that mitigated flooding in the country’s capital.

This was great. But when it came to talk shop, things became awkward when she used a five-letter word that began with the letter “d.”

“The conversation would just stop,” she said. “Just completely stop dead.”

Drones are monitoring sea mammals, keeping tabs on oil spills, helping governments prevent floods.

Every year, AUVSI, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International,hosts the biggest conference and trade show for drones in the country (but don't call them drones there; the term is UAS, for Unmanned Aerial Systems, please).

The industry group's last convention was in Las Vegas, and wrapped up earlier this month. A colleague who was there sent me the exhibition catalog. As is the custom nowadays, you could have read all that info online. But the printed version was still worth reading, and served as a snapshot of the "state of the drone."

I've taken four of what I thought were the most interesting talks, and pasted their descriptions here. The list includes researchers and developers using drones to monitor oil spills and the health of marine mammals. In one discussion, a Thai UAV company claims their technology helped the government make decisions that averted a major flood from inundating Bangkok.

A Code of Ethics for Drone Journalists

Yesterday my colleague, Acton Gorton, sent me an email that the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry group representing defense, civil and commercial drone developers and operators, had released a “code of conduct” for the unmanned aircraft systems industry.

“This code is intended to provide our members, and those who design, test, and operate UAS for public and civil use, a set of guidelines and recommendations for safe, non‐intrusive operations,” the code reads. “Acceptance and adherence to this code will contribute to safety and professionalism and will accelerate public confidence in these systems.”

The code is broken into three sections, relating to “safety,” “professionalism,” and “respect.” The code is good as a framework for further discussion, but it’s not terribly specific as-is. For example, the safety portion of the code requires “crew fitness for flight operations,” but mentions no standards by which crew fitness should be judged. Likewise, it requires “Reliability, performance, and airworthiness to established standards,” but does not specify what those standards might be.

The AUVSI also is not the first to develop a code for UAS operations. That first likely belongs to RCAPA, the Remote Control Aerial Photography Association. The RCAPA has an extensive list of guidelines that cover drone construction, flight operations (including checks for control systems, and operations before, during and after flight), and even maintenance logs.

AUVSI likely is keeping broad definitions because it is trying to cover large swaths of the drone industry, which encompasses a wide variety of devices and goals, whereas RCAPA is mostly aiming to represent individual professionals and hobbyists who use drones specifically for aerial photography. But both are similar in that they are trying to safeguard the people who develop and operate drones.

When I launched DroneJournalism.org in December, 2011, I had a purpose in mind: to become a hub for developing the ethical, educational and technological framework for the emerging field of drone journalism. Hoping to become the “Wiki of Drone Journalism,” I opened much of the website to professional colleagues who have an interest in the field. Registration is still opened to interested parties.

Since launching the site, my co-developer and I have built two fixed-wing drones, destroyed one of them in testing, and are cobbling together a multi-rotor journalism drone. But we’ve added very little to the site in terms of drone journalism ethics, and I hope to change that.

Some of the following is from previous posts on DroneJournalism.org, and those form the basis of a code for drone journalists I am proposing. The most recent additions to the code involves a tiered approach to drone journalism ethics that borrows from the philosophy of Maslow’s pyramid.

A CODE FOR DRONE JOURNALISTS