UAS in the NAS - ASCI 530 4.5 Research Blog

ATC needs to be able to communicate with the UAS controller whenever the UAV is in controlled airspace.  Since the UAS controller is on the ground, and most likely not in line-of-sight communication with ATC the UAS could be used to relay the communication to the ground controller via satellite communications (Pongracz & Palik, 2012).  This would allow direct communication with the UAS controller and it would be similar to contacting an on board pilot. Of course, this only works for larger UASs, most notable military controlled UASs that have access to satellite communications.

 

According to the Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 14CFR 91.111(b) “the operator of an aircraft must maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid other aircraft. The operator must also give way to other aircraft if they have the right of way”.  Since a UAS cannot see to avoid it needs to “sense and avoid”.  Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is used to broadcast to ATC the position, altitude and velocity of an aircraft. Having ADS-B built into a UAS would enable ATC to locate the UAS, any aircraft or person with an ADS-B receiver and let the UAS know of other aircraft in its vicinity and it could navigate to stay clear of the manned aircraft. A company called uAvioni has released a line of small ADS-Bs that could easily be fitted into a small UAS, some of these are only an inch by an inch in size (ADS-B Transceivers, n.d.).   

PrecisionHawk has developed Low Altitude Tracking and Avoidance System, or LATAS. LATAS is “onboard system that provides flight planning, tracking and avoidance for every drone in the sky using real-time flight data transmission based on existing world-wide cellular networks” (Say Hello, 2015).  LATAS uses existing cell towers to transmit a UAVs location to ATC, which would relay that position to pilots in the area. This is a small bit of electronics, about one inch by two inches, that can be added to any UAV during manufacturing. 

(Say Hello, 2015)

These are some options for controlling a UAS in the national airspace. As with all aviation it takes skilled people, on the ground, in the tower or in the sky to make it all work safely. Even with sense and avoid systems in place, aviation personnel will still need to remain vigilant and aware. 

  

References

ADS-B Transceivers, Receivers and Navigation Systems for Drones (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/company/uavionix-corporation/

Say Hello to LATAS (January 09, 2015). Retrieved from http://www.precisionhawk.com/media/topic/say-hello-to-latas/

Weeding out a Solution - ASCI 530 2.5 Research Blog

UAS Sprayer 1 (Agricultural UAV, 2016)

Problem:

 A UAS is to be designed for precision crop-dusting. In the middle of the design process, the system is found to be overweight.

• Two subsystems – 1) Guidance, Navigation & Control [flying correctly] and 2) Payload delivery [spraying correctly] have attempted to save costs by purchasing off-the-shelf hardware, rather than a custom design, resulting in both going over their originally allotted weight budgets. Each team has suggested that the OTHER team reduce weight to compensate.
• The UAS will not be able to carry sufficient weight to spread the specified (Marketing has already talked this up to customers) amount of fertilizer over the specified area without cutting into the fuel margin. The safety engineers are uncomfortable with the idea of changing the fuel margin at all.

Write a response describing how you, as the Systems Engineer, would go about resolving this issue. Use your imagination, and try to capture what you would really do. Take into account and express in your writing the things you’ve learned so far in this module: What are your considerations? What are your priorities? What do you think about the future prospects for the “next generation, enhanced” version of the system as a result of your approach?

My Response:

My priority for this issue is to ensure we deliver the end product that marketing has promised, we can precisely deliver the allotted volume of fertilizer in the correct location with the needed endurance for the UAS.  My second and third priorities are to ensure we are within budget by a few percent and within the promised time frame within reason.  If a UAS is delivered as promised but a few percent more in cost is better than a UAS that doesn’t deliver as marketed but costs what was promised. The initial purchase is a onetime pain for the end user, and can be overcome when the seasonal use of the UAS goes off as promised.  Same thing with the timeline. If it is late by a small amount of time, say within a month, then the repeated seasonal use of a functioning product will most likely overcome the late delivery.  Of course, all attempts will be made to deliver on budget, time, payload and endurance. “Build the right system, and build the system right” (Cantor & Roose, 2006).

I would go to the lead Guidance, Navigation & Control engineer and lead Payload delivery engineer in two separate meetings, both with the same structure.  I’d like to see the weight roll up of all parts they are responsible for.  Using this we would go after the heaviest parts first, and go from there. Assuming the heaviest part is the off the shelf purchase I would ask the engineer to talk to the supplier.  If the supplier knows our requirements, they may have alternative solutions that do not come with the same weight.   The main competitors of the suppliers should also be contacted. If they also know our requirements, to include cost and timeline, they may have a solution the current supplier does not.

What are the options for creating our own systems that are not off the shelf? Again, the suppliers would need to be contacted and a discussion had.  Most likely their parts have some ability to be interchanged within themselves.  If we don’t purchase a box full of electronic components from the supplier, but instead we purchase only some of the electronics inside we may have an opportunity for weight reduction. They have a packaged product that delivers to all of the end users, which may have features we do not need.

I would also let every engineer on the project know we are having weight issues. Perhaps another system has a means to reduce weight which will offset the added weight from these two systems. An example of saving weight is to look at something simple such as brackets and hardware. Let’s take a simple L bracket and discuss ways to reduce weight.  If you have two flat plates that are welded to form the L a flat plate bent into an L would be lighter. It’s also likely a bent bracket would be cheaper as there is less labor and handling on the manufactures end. Assuming the L bracket has holes for mounting if we add welded nuts to it that would reduce the total part count for hardware required, by eliminating the washer that would go under a loose nut.  One washer is not significant, but if you do that all over the UAS is does start to add up. This would also reduce labor time on our end for assembly as well as less total parts that need to be stored along the assembly line.

 Is there a place to use rivets instead of bolts/nuts/washers? Is there places to use bends instead of welds? Working with the suppliers of any mounting brackets they would be able to offer solutions to save weight or cost. Can we change the material? If it’s currently steel is there an option to make it out of some form of plastic? An L bracket is straight forward and not likely to save much, however a fully enclosed box with mounting hardware in it starts to open possibilities.  I spent years as an engineer and would work with suppliers often to reduce weight and cost, they normally had ideas since they built the parts for us.  The ideas varied from changing steel types, removing extra gussets or decreasing their sizes, changing hardware configurations, riveting not bolting or bending instead of welding.

UAS Sprayer 2 (Agricultural UAV, 2016)

Making any changes to hardware or the electronics would have benefits down the line. In the future generations of our product we have already started to customize the “off the shelf” products to our needs. We started the relationship with the supplier now, and any future programs can be started with the supplier from the beginning, instead of later on into the project as is the case now.  Working with suppliers to possibly modify brackets and mounting hardware also educates our engineers on this topic and they can start to design hardware more intelligently. Which would reduce design iterations and save on cost of the engineer’s time.

There is a balance to strike with cost and timeline, however in the end we have to deliver a usable product.  A systems engineer can’t deliver everything required. The “job is not to satisfy all needs, but to select a profitable and practical subset of those needs and attempt to deliver” (Gilb, 2006).  If we focus on delivering the right product, this will pay off in the long run for our company.  

References

Agriculture UAV Crop Dusters Agriculture UAV Sprayers Platforms. (2016, December 21). Retrieved from http://www.uavcropdustersprayers.com/

Glibb, T. (2006). Some Powerful Systems Engineering Heuristics. SE Heuristics.

Cantor, M., & Roose, G. (2006, March 18). The Six Principles of Systems Engineering. Retrieved from http://websphere.sys-con.com/node/196077

  

Development of the Predator - ASCI 530 1.6 Research Blog

Amber (Parsch, 2004)

The Amber is the drone that eventually became our modern-day Predator drone. It was developed in the mid-1980s for the DoD by Abe Karem, an aerospace engineer who immigrated from Israel to the U.S. The Amber was equipped with retractable tricycle landing gear for conventional take-off and landing from a runway. It used a rear mounted two-blade pusher propeller with a 65-horsepower piston engine with an inverted-V design for the tail (Parsch, 2004). The bulged nose held a daylight television camera and a Forward-Looking Infrared system, FLIR, and used a two-way data link for ground communications allowing the pilots to see via the imagery from the camera in the nose (Parsch, 2004).   Its maximum endurance was 38 hours, a range of 120 nautical miles, a ceiling of 25,000 feet and a maximum speed of 125 mph (Parsch, 2004). 

The Amber was modified into the GNAT 750 in the late 1990s (Potts, 2012). It featured satellite and manned aircraft relayed communication, the first of its kind (Potts, 2012).  The GNAT 750 was further modified into the configuring we know now, the Predator. 

The Predator featured a larger fuselage, extended wings and a bigger propulsions system.  It has more than 40 hours of endurance, a range of 150 nautical miles, a maximum ceiling of 50,000 feet and a maximum speed of 135 mph (Predator RQ-1, n.d.).  The electronics in the nose are able to be swapped based on the mission. They include electro-optical and infrared cameras, synthetic aperture radar, two-color television camera with variable zoom, a FLIR, a laser designator and ranger finder, electronic countermeasures and a moving target indicator (Predator RQ-1, n.d.).  A large change over the Amber is it can be loaded with two Hellfire anti-armor missiles linked to the moving target indicator system as well as all optical sensors (Predator RQ-1, n.d.).

Predator (Predator RQ-1, n.d.)

The two largest changes between the Amber and the Predator was the addition of munitions and the satellite communication system. “Predator crews became the first combatants in history able to spy on and, eventually, kill an enemy from the opposite side of the globe” (Whittle, 2013).  The advancement in cameras and observation technology has definitely played a role in this, but without the satellite communication system the operators would need to ne near, and possibly still line of site as was the case with older UAVs.  

The next leap in UAV technology will be better development of autopilot or artificial intelligence for drone operation. The more a UAV can do for itself, the lesser the workload on the operator.  “Developments with “artificial intelligence,” (AI) will better enable unmanned platforms to organize, interpret and integrate functions independently such as ISR filtering, sensor manipulation, maneuvering, navigation and targeting adjustments.  In essence, emerging computer technology will better enable drones to make more decisions and perform more functions by themselves” (Future Drones, 2017).

  

References:

Future Drones Stealthier, More Lethal Weapons - 2030s. (2017, October 04). Retrieved October 22, 2017, from https://scout.com/military/warrior/Article/Special-Future-Drones-Smarter-More-Lethal-Stealthy-101455165

Parsch, A. (2004). Retrieved October 22, 2017, from http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/amber.html

Potts, A. (2012, December 01). The Dronefather. Retrieved October 22, 2017, from https://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567205-abe-karem-created-robotic-plane-transformed-way-modern-warfare

Predator RQ-1 / MQ-1 / MQ-9 Reaper UAV. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2017, from http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/predator-uav/

Whittle, R. (2013, April). The Man Who Invented the Predator. Retrieved October 19, 2017, from https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/the-man-who-invented-the-predator-3970502/?all

How Drones are Impacting our Lives - 9.4 Research Blog UNSY501

RMAX, Gallager, 2015

UAVs or Drones will have the biggest impact on our society over the next few decades. While unmanned maritime and ground systems will certainly continue to evolve and shape those industries, drones are becoming more and more integrated into everyone’s daily lives.  The drone industry is expected to create 100,000 additional jobs by 2025 (Drake, 2017).  

I live in South Korea and about a mile away is a company that trains pilots to operate unmanned multirotor and helicopters, such as the RMAX, for crop dusting and agricultural surveys.  The RMAX has been used in Japan for nearly twenty years, and it came to Korea about five years ago.  The university of California has been using it to crop dust since 2013 (Gallagher, 2015).

UPS Drone, Stewart, 2017

Amazon, Google, 7-Eleven and UPS are all attempting drone delivery. UPS successfully completed initial trails early this year.  The driver would pull up to the start of a long rural driveway, load a package into an automated drone and send it to deliver the package. Meanwhile the driver would continue down the road to the next destination. The drone would deliver its package then return to the truck, which is further down the road, land itself and dock into a charging station. The driver could choose went to employ the drone and when to hand deliver.  When houses are directly next to each other it makes sense to hand deliver, but when they are in the country and separated by miles of road and then long driveways the drone delivers and the driver moves to the next destination (Stewart, 2017). 

Zipline, HSU, 2017

Zipline, a San Francisco based company, is using fixed wing drones to deliver medical supplies in Rwanda.  It uses parachute drops to deliver medical supplies to remote villages. Rwanda is developing its own infrastructure with Zipline, leaving Zipline free to develop to project as needed. In 2018 Zipline will introduce the same medial supply delivery system, but on a larger scale, in Tanzania.  They plan on delivering to 1,000 hospitals around the country making almost 2,000 deliveries per day.  The Tanzanian government is working with Zipline to achieve this (Hsu, 2017).

Drones are being integrated into our lives more and more.  Search and rescue, hobbyists, wildlife management, delivery of goods and medical supplies, video and photography shoots just to mention a few industries.  I’m personally excited to see all the different ways drones are being used to help improve our lives.  If it’s flying a drone for fun, racing with some buddies, conducting wildlife counts or delivering much needed medical supplies drones are here to stay and will continue to grow and develop as we discover new ways to integrate them.

References:

Drake, D. (2016, March 04). Drones Rising: Bringing the Economy Along with It. Retrieved October 06, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-drake/drones-rising-bringing-th_b_9324278.html

Gallagher - May 5, 2015 10:12 pm UTC, S. (2015, May 05). Crop-dusting Unmanned Helicopter Gets Cleared for Commercial Fight. Retrieved October 06, 2017, from https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/crop-dusting-unmanned-helicopter-gets-cleared-for-commercial-flight/

Stewart, J. (2017, June 03). UPS Tests the Future: A Drone-Slinging Delivery Van. Retrieved October 06, 2017, from https://www.wired.com/2017/02/drone-slinging-ups-van-delivers-future/

Unmanned System Implementation Strategy - 8.4 Research Blog UNSY501

Autonomous Container Ships

Birkeland, courtesy Ong 2017

In 2020 Yara International plans to have a fully automated cargo ship in operation, called the Birkeland.  It is designed to be a zero emission, all electric 100-container ship covering a 37 mile route delivering goods.  This route will replace the current route which takes 40,000 truck routes currently (Ong, 20217).  This is a large volume of truck traffic to remove from the roads. The Birkeland will use an integrated system of GPS, radar, cameras and sensors to navigate in and out of port, along its route and for collision avoidance (Ong, 2017).

With autonomous container ships there isn’t any opportunity to spy on individuals, there is no glaring privacy issue.  There are cameras mounted to the container to help with docking and collision avoidance. This means there may be accidental recordings of people that could lead to a privacy issue.  The ships are recording people intentionally, only people in the background of a recording.  Yara doesn’t need to permanently keep any of this footage. It would make sense they need to store the footage for a short amount of time, in case of an incident they would need the footage for any following investigations.  My opinion is after two weeks the footage is reasonably no longer needed and should be deleted.  Access to the footage should be on an as needed basis, not an open source to the public. 

In the autonomous car arena there is an ethical issue on what the car should do in the event of an unavoidable accident.  Should the car save its occupants at the expense of those outside the car? Should it always save the most amount of people, possibly killing the occupants?  Would anyone buy a car that could technically be programmed to sacrifice its owner? Accidents do happen with container ships, there are cases where they have collided with other ships, docks or bridges. The automotive industry is still looking for an answer to its ethical dilemma.  One approach it is taking is to ask people to answer who should survive in unavoidable accidents, the answers are aggregated to build a set of ethics for the cars to follow.  The maritime industry can take the same approach.  Ask people to analyze an unavoidable accident and choose the best course of action.  Once enough people have been surveyed create a set of rules based on the average morals.  This is a large undertaking and may not be a perfect solution, but it’s an excellent start.

Safety is an issue for maritime operations. Docking, navigation and collision avoidance are all concerns for an automated vessel.  Rolls Royce is working on an autonomous vessel it hopes to launch between 2020-2025 (Levander, 2017).  They are developing a situational-awareness system “that integrate imagery from high-definition visible-light and infrared cameras with lidar and radar measurements, providing a detailed picture of the ship’s immediate environment” (Levander, 2017).  This information can be fed to the onboard navigation system for all docking and navigation procedures.  They will also can feed this information to remote skipper who will pilot the ship in if needed.  Manned vessels currently use the same information and systems to help.  Yara is developing their ships along the same lines, using sensors and GPS so the ship knows where it is and what is immediately around it.

In the event of loss of control or command signal there are a few options.  Both Rolls Royce and Yara will be feeding all of the information from the ship back to a remote command center, where experienced operators can take control of the ship if needed.  All safety and navigation systems on board should monitor themselves to ensure they are operational, if a system detects an issue the operators can take control bring the ship in safely (Levander, 2017).  These ships should be designed so that a pilot can board them and control the ship directly.  In the event of signal loss with the command center the ships can be programed to navigate to a predetermined point and circle until a pilot can board the craft and dock it.  Many ports currently require a local pilot to board a ship and navigate it in so this operation is currently done already.

There are many issues that still need to be worked out with autonomous container ships. Yara and Rolls Royce are both on the fore front of this development.  Both are planning to go fully autonomous in stages. Essentially manually pilot the ship at first, then let a computer navigate and steer in the open waters with crew on board, then the computer can dock and eventually over a period of years crew will not be on board (Ong, 2017).  With a slow introduction and discrete steps, issues can be identified as they occur and addressed. 

Autonomous Concept, courtesy Levander 2017

References:

Levander, O. (2017, January 28). Forget Autonomous Cars-Autonomous Ships Are Almost Here. Retrieved September 29, 2017, from https://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/marine/forget-autonomous-cars-autonomous-ships-are-almost-here

Ong, T. (2017, July 24). The World's First Crewless Cargo Ship Will Launch Next Year. Retrieved September 29, 2017, from https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16018652/first-autonomous-ship-launch-2018

Unmanned Space Exploration - 5.4 Research Blog UNSY501

In a CNN article Don Lincoln argues that space exploration should be conducted by machines first, and only conditionally by humans in the future.  He states that people are fragile “They need food, water, and air. They can exist in only a narrow range of temperatures and find inhospitable both vacuums and a radioactive environment” (Lincoln, 2017).  Since humans have a limited range they can live within, his stance is it makes sense to send machines into space for all preliminary investigations and studies of space.  I believe he has some valid points in his article.

Hubble, courtesy NASA

Since humans are fragile it’s costly to engineer spacecrafts for human habitation.  Mars Curiosity Rover costs around $2.5 billion dollars and collected large amounts of data for NASA (Lincoln, 2017). Cassini’s mission to Saturn cost around $3.2 billion and the Hubble costs around $14 billion and key in determining that the expansion of the universe is accelerating (Lincoln, 2017).  By contrast the estimated costs of a manned mission by 2030 is around $1 trillion, that dollar amount would hamstring the rest of the budget for space exploration (Lincoln, 2017). 

“The fragility of humans, our aversion for risking human life, and the all-too-human need for consumables (food, water and oxygen) require vast amounts of money to pay for the extra engineering and multiple redundant systems we demand to reduce risk to astronauts, as well as for the vastly larger support crews needed to baby-sit every aspect of daily life during a manned space mission” (Colwell & Britt, n.d.). From a budgetary standpoint I agree with Lincoln, it is significantly more cost effective to send machines to space than it is humans.  “Manned programs can cost tens or hundreds of times more than the robotic missions” (Lincoln, 2017). 

One of the ultimate goals of space exploration is to make humanity a multiplanetary species. Deciding where to live is a big question still.  Terraforming Mars, converting it to a world with and atmosphere suitable for us, could take centuries or possibly even a millennium (Warmflash, 2017).  “There is no place in our solar system where pioneers can simply drop seeds in the soil and wait for food to pop out of the ground. For that, we need to look at distant stars” (Lincoln, 2017). 

Any potential planet believed to be a suitable habitat for humans, without the need for terraforming, would need to be explored by machines first.  A trip to and from Proxima Centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor, would take around eight years (Lincoln, 2017).  Even travelling to Jupiter would take around seven years one way (The 12 Greatest, 2016).  The amount of space radiation a human would be subject to is known to cause cancer, eye issues and possibly Alzheimer’s (The 12 Greatest, 2016).  Machines do not require protections, nor do they suffer from health issues associated with space travel. 

Lincoln argues that machines should be used to explore space, for now. With the expense of sending humans to space, and the potential health effects it only makes sense to let machines do all the initial work.  Once machines have explored into the depths of space and figured out what planet would be suitable then it would make sense to start sending humans into space.  “With a welcoming destination beckoning to them, a team of intrepid men and women will leave the solar system and strike out for a new home. And, at that moment, homo interstellaris will come of age” (Lincoln, 2017). 

References:

Colwell, J., & Britt, D. (n.d.). Are robots or astronauts the future of space exploration? Retrieved September 10, 2017, from https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/opinion/

Lincoln, D. (2017, April 20). Machines, Not People, Should be Exploring Space for Now. Retrieved September 10, 2017, from http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/20/opinions/machines-not-people-should-be-exploring-space-opinion-lincoln/index.html

The 12 Greatest Challenges for Space Exploration. (2016, February 16). Retrieved September 10, 2017, from https://www.wired.com/2016/02/space-is-cold-vast-and-deadly-humans-will-explore-it-anyway/

Warmflash, D. (2017, September 08). Quest to colonize space demands boost from biotechnology, synthetic biology. Retrieved September 10, 2017, from https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/09/08/quest-colonize-space-demands-boost-biotechnology-synthetic-biology/

Future Drone Regulations - 4.4 Research Blog UNSY501

Drone use in the U.S. is becoming increasingly popular as the technology becomes cheaper and simpler to use for the novice.  The FAA expects hobbyist drones to increase from 1.1 million drones in 2016 to 3.5 million by 2021 (Shepardson, 2017).  Commercial drones are expected to increase from 42,000 in 2016 to 442,000 by 2021 (Shepardson, 2017).  The number of pilots for drones is expected to grow from 20,000 in 2016 to 200,000-400,000 by 2021 (Shepardson, 2017).  In 2016 the White House commented that by 2025 unmanned aircraft will lead to $82 billion in economic growth and support an additional 100,000 jobs (Shepardson, 2017).

With that kind of growth in the unmanned aircraft industry I believe the FAA will have to step in and develop rules governing their uses, which they have already.  The regulations will need to continue to grow and evolve with the industry. Currently part 107 states pilots need to be certified, only fly during the day, keep it in line of sight, don’t overfly people and fly in class G airspace only (Getting Started, 2017).

All of these regulations make sense and are designed to protect the operators, bystanders and aircraft in the area.  I don’t believe allow for the full growth of the industry.  If operators could operate beyond line of site it would improve the productivity of certain occupations that are using drones, such as surveying or land management. Both Amazon and Google are considering drone use for delivery of goods, which would require flight beyond line of sight and flying into neighborhoods around people (Shepardson, 2017). In a 2017 article The Economist discusses how regulation is going to drive the technology used in drones.

Drone operators and companies can apply for a waiver for part 107, provided they can show how they can still be operated safely under the waiver they are asking for (The Future of Drones, 2017).  If a drone needs to be flown after sunset it requires a light on the drone that is visible from three miles away and the operator must be trained to fly at night (The Future of Drones, 2017).  Brendan Schulman, head of policy at DJI, believes that waivers such as night flights will be what leads to new rules by the FAA (The Future of Drones, 2017).   I think it’s a step in the right direction if the FAA looks at what waivers are being applied for and shape the polices to allow for the waivers as part of the regulations.

The FAA is looking to drone operators on how to allow them to mitigate the risk of flying over people (The Future of Drones, 2017).  DJI is looking at possibly adding parachutes to drones, some form of cushioning or making them so light that if they do fall onto someone there would be little injury caused (The Future of Drones, 2017). 

DJI currently supports “geo-fencing” using AirMap.  This uses a database and the GPS in the DJI to control where drones are and are not allowed to fly, such as flying to close to an airport, the drone will not allow the operator to enter an area restricted drone flight (The Future of Drones, 2017).    If the FAA can combine current airspace restrictions and NOTAMs into something such as AirMap I feel this would be an excellent barrier to keep drones from flying where they should not. “Geo-fencing” would also allow for beyond line of sight flight, an operator can't get disoriented and fly into controlled airspace. 

The Economist points out that the regulations are what is going to drive the future of drones.  Regulations allowing for night flights will drive an anti-collision light on drones.  “Geo-fencing” will mean drones will require GPS. If some form of ATC is developed for drones they will need a version of a transponder, and a way to detect other drones in their vicinity to avoid collisions.  I personally and excited about the future of drone use and I hope to see the market grow, as well as the FAA stay current on what rules and regulations are required. 

References:

The Future of Drones Depends on Regulation, not just Technology. (2017, June 10). Retrieved September 02, 2017, from https://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21723000-engineers-and-regulators-will-have-work-together-ensure-safety-drones-take

Getting Started. (2017, July 31). Retrieved September 02, 2017, from https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/

Shepardson, D. (2017, March 22). U.S. commercial drone use to expand tenfold by 2021: government agency. Retrieved September 02, 2017, from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drones/u-s-commercial-drone-use-to-expand-tenfold-by-2021-government-agency-idUSKBN16S2NM