Not cleared to fly: worries about mid-air collisions keep civilian drones grounded.

• Author: Wagner, Breanne
• Position: Battlefield Surveillance

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SAN DIEGO -- Local governments and unmanned aircraft suppliers look forward to the day when legions of drones can fly over the national airspace to survey fires, spot displaced citizens in a natural disaster or pinpoint criminals in a police investigation.

But for now, unmanned aircraft are still grounded.

The agency that controls the domestic airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration, said drones are not yet ready to conduct such missions.

One of the FAA's primary concerns is that drones lack the ability to see other aircraft and avoid deadly collisions. Agency officials have said drones must have the same ability as manned aircraft to prevent collisions, meaning they must be able to sense potential obstacles, detect the risk of a crash and maneuver well clear.

Equipping unmanned aircraft, or UAVs, with this capability will require new technology and revised policies, said John Walker, chairman of the RTCA special committee 203, a group that advises the Federal Aviation Administration.

RTCA Inc. is a private, not-for-profit corporation that develops recommendations regarding communications, navigation, surveillance and air traffic management system issues.

"There has never been anything as complex" in the aviation world, Walker asserted during an interview.

The unmanned aircraft industry may wait for another decade before civilian drones proliferate in U.S. skies, Walker said. Standards that would allow the FAA to certify drones will likely not be written until 2019, although he views that date as the "worst case scenario."

Concerns about mid-air collisions is just one of the many barriers that still prevent drones from flying in the national airspace.

On the technical side, another challenge is access to radio spectrum, said Basil Papadales, principal with Moire Inc, a UAV consulting firm in Issaquah, Wash.

"Radio frequency is a problem because safe UAV operations depends on having reliable communications when and where it's needed," he told National Defense. "As cell phones and Wi-Fi computers proliferate, the RF spectrum is getting crowded."

Additionally, the UAV industry doesn't have the money to purchase expensive spectrum, Papadales asserted. The industry depends on using military radio channels, but once companies begin operating in domestic airspace, they will have to get their own.

Another impediment to getting drones off the ground is a lack of coordination among agencies and industry groups, said Dale...