Google Tests Drones in Australia

Australian farmer
Neil Parfitt recently became the first person in the world to
receive a delivery from a Google drone. The candy bar that was
delivered to Parfitt foreshadows a future in which small and medium
sized items will be delivered in minutes. Reason TV took a look at
the “drone boom” last year.

“Drone Boom: Why Drones Aren’t Just for Dropping Bombs
Anymore,” produced by Paul Detrick. Approximately 7
minutes.

Original release date was August 20, 2013. The original writeup
is below.

When you hear the word drone you may immediately think of bombs
being dropped in the Middle East or the surveillance of citizens
here in the United States, but engineers and aviation geeks have
wondered for decades if unmanned flight might solve a few of our
world’s problems or just make our lives a little easier.

Over 30 years ago, science magazines wondered if drones would
“sniff out pollution,” or, “make pilots obsolete,” and engineers
are saying that those ideas may be possible now.

“The technology has reached a point where it can be very
inexpensive to buy [unmanned aerial system technology],” says John
Villasenor, an engineer at UCLA and a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution. Villasenor says that advances in GPS,
airframe design, and flight control methods have made unmanned
flight available to pretty much anyone.

As a part of the FAA’s re-authorization of funds in February
2012, Congress passed a bill that included the integration of
unmanned aircraft into U.S. airspace. First for public entities
like law enforcement or fire fighters and second for civilians like
farmers or filmmakers with full integration by 2015. In July, the
FAA approved two drones for commercial use which could fly as early
as 2013.

The industry is growing so quickly worldwide that the
intelligence research firm the Teal Group, said in June 2013 that
unmanned aerial vehicle spending will more than double over the
next ten years from current expenditures of $5.2 billion annually
to $11.6 billion–totaling just over $89 billion in the next
decade.

“The potential of UAVs benefiting mankind in firefighting,
agriculture, pollution, stopping all sorts of loss of life because
we were able to send a remote vehicle instead of a human life into
that is amazing,” said Alan Tratnor of the California Space
Enterprise Center at an unmanned aerial vehicle policy symposium
put on by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in
March 2013.

The symposium is like a lot of public discussions going on
around the world right now about drones.

Drone like this one are becoming cheaper and more available to
civilians.”It’s a way to have a dialogue across the whole community
to make sure we are all thinking of the right things and moving in
the right direction together,” said Sandra Magnus, executive
director of AIAA.

Some companies have already hit the ground running with low
level aerial film making. Drone Dudes is a two year old company of
young filmmakers and engineers who shoot sporting events across the
United States. Whether it’s biking, surfing, driving or
skateboarding, Drone Dudes is able to capture aerial shots that are
considerably cheaper and more dynamic that using a crane or a
helicopter.

Magnus, who is also a former astronaut, says that she is aware
of the concerns people have about the new technology.

“Human beings, our very nature, we’re a little scary about
change because it’s the unknown, but we’re explorers too. And we
are constantly balancing that tension between what’s the unknown
like and part of us yearn to go into the unknown and all the debate
you hear about the use of unmanned vehicles on both sides, you’re
seeing that tension played out.”

Villasenor points out that in the late 1800s, when cameras
became cheap enough for many Americans to buy, there was tension
over that new technology too. Some of that tension grew over
privacy fears, a topic the unmanned aerial system community can’t
seem to escape.

Drone camera”I think civil libertarians have a right to be
concerned about privacy,” says Villasenor. “To deny that unmanned
aircraft […] will in some cases be used in manner that violates
privacy, that would be overly naive. It will happen.”

Villasenor points out that when it comes to government drones
with cameras the fourth amendment still should apply when it comes
to civilians, there are invasion of privacy statues people must
abide by.

“I also think it’s important for people with an interest in
civil liberties and everyone else to look at it on the other side
[…] We have, all of us, an affirmative first amendment right to
gather information so unmanned aircraft in the hands of people who
are gathering information which includes people in the news media
and others can be very powerful tools just like cameras are today,”
says Villasenor.

“Technology is a tool and you have to be mindful how you use
it,” says Magnus. “But we can’t let our fear keep us from reaping
the benefits of our brains, which is where the technology comes
from.”

Written and produced by Paul Detrick. Camera by Detrick, Sharif
Matar, Alex Manning and Tracy Oppenheimer.