The second is that you can turn practically anything into a drone with the availability of parts and the sharing of ideas. You can literally make a brick “fly” like a robot. In addition to the aerial kind, I’ve seen drone boats, cars, kites, jellyfish…even a robot fish that helps direct schools of fish, all bringing their own use-case scenarios that run the spectrum from brilliant to nefarious applications.
To make any of the drone hype a reality, you have to match a great design with all of the Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) limitations. Most often these requirements provide enough challenges to slow the rapid expansion and application of drone technologies without the need for all-encompassing policy or regulation. The realization of these requirements tip us over the crest of the Hype Cycle Expectation Peak and downward into the Trough of Disillusionment as businesses manage expectations and match market demands with reliable components and the right amount of progress.
The reality is that people will always hype what drones can do, what we want them to do, how they will impact our lives and most of these will never take to the air because the laws of physics AND the law of Supply and Demand get the final vote. I am one of these people who dreams of UASs that can find lost hikers, that can carry a WiFi signal or a vaccine and I’ve had the ground come up and smite my systems enough times that I now carefully weigh the benefits before I hit the throttle.
This is where FAA policies, rules, and governing regulations need to be applied; after the flood of ideas and big dreams have been grounded in reality. Setting policies to encapsulate all the bad ideas currently out for discussion will ultimately crush industry and innovation of the good ideas. Afterall, television is still a great idea despite 13 seasons of Big Brother.
I know we WANT the FAA to get its policies in order and allow the commercial development to proceed as rapidly as we come up with a great new use-case, but we need to let the technology follow its course a little longer to where we can see the productivity-potential (as we stand there picking up the pieces of our systems that couldn’t live up to our grand ideas) and focus policies where they allow the right kinds of innovation and encompass the safety/rights of the general public.
