A Safety Analysis of UAV Mapping Operations

The introduction and ongoing integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) into the National Airspace System requires appropriate management and regulation. To ensure safe access for all stakeholders the Federal Aviation Administration has established regulations for hobbyist and commercial operators of UAVs, partially supplemented with concurrent guidelines for hobbyist from the Academy of Model Aeronautics. Initially, many of the regulations regarding UAVs sought to maintain current safety standards by ensuring air traffic segregation between manned and unmanned aircraft. That said, much of the ongoing regulation development has occurred without data and evidence-driven practices; regulators have based decisions without accurate knowledge of the real-world usage of UAVs. In an attempt to support ongoing regulation and policy development this initial study reports statistics regarding pilot observance of UAV regulations and guidelines when performing mapping operations. Over 168,000 UAV trajectories, representing real-world UAV mapping operations, are analyzed to determine if pilots likely maintained visualline-of-sight, and followed 400 ft altitude guidelines and airspace restrictions. While global variations are noted, UAV pilots performing mapping operations within the United States are observed to widely comply with regulations. Troubling however, the analysis indicates that the small group of UAV pilots exceeding altitude regulations are much more likely to break other regulations as well, thereby increasing the risk of interaction with manned aircraft.