17 UAS for Good, Bad, and the Improbable

This Episode:Using a drone to smuggle contraband into a prison, learn to fly unmanned vehicles at a University, UAV privacy laws carve out drones as a special case, drones are blocked even for humanitarian purposes, the Amazon.com vision for UAS, and how to hack a drone.The News:Drones used to try to smuggle contraband into jailPrison guards, probably among the most perceptive people, noticed a hexacopter over Calhoun State Prison in Georgia. Four people were arrested after the drone was found in a car with some tobacco and mobile phones – desirable items for the incarcerated.So you want to FLY DronesAfter becoming interested in this field, the author joined a Drone Pilot Training Certificate program at the Unmanned Vehicle University (UVU), which was founded in 2012. The three-phase Certificate has students complete an online “ground school” from home, then computer flight training simulation, and finally actual flight school.Flightless DronesWe think about privacy concerns associated with Unmanned Aerial Systems, but what makes drones so different? Shouldn’t we be looking at privacy from a general surveillance perspective, regardless of the technology? What about other robotic or autonomous devices that can snoop on you?Civilian Drones MovieThis documentary presents compelling examples of actual search and rescue operations (SAR) where drones played a critical role. These are real people with lost loved ones. The non-profit search team of volunteers has been declared by the FAA to be in an official capacity, not essential, and therefore forbidden.The Texas Equusearch SAR team featured in the documentary uses a variety of resources (divers, searchers on horseback, etc.) and has conducted 1300 searches across the U.S. They found the RP Flight Systems Spectra to be invaluable in locating missing persons.Two producers of the documentary were interviewed on Episode 280 of the “All Things That Fly” podcast, about 14 minutes in. Their mission is “Spreading the word about the humanitarian use of civilian drones” and you can find them on Twitter as @CivilianDrones.Amazon’s Hopes For Drone DeliveriesAmazon.com has produced a concept video showing an octocopter load a package and deliver it to the front walk of the purchasing family’s home. While limited to 5-pound packages, Amazon says that covers 86% of the packages shipped. They say such a service could be deployed within five years.Flying hacker contraption hunts other drones, turns them into zombiesWell known hacker Samy Kamkar has released the specifications needed to turn a Parrot AR Drone into “SkyJack,” which can hijack nearby Parrot drones.Max’s Quadcopter:Max now has a Blade Nano QX quad-copter that he’s learning to fly, although not very successfully so far. The “buy small and don’t spend a lot of money” strategy for the first multi-copter is proving to be a good one since Max crashes the thing a lot.