The FAA released its proposed remote ID requirements for unmanned aircraft, a milestone for the industry.
The FAA released its proposal for small unmanned aircraft (UAS) remote identification rules, a critical step to safely integrating drones into the national airspace and unlocking advanced operational capabilities.
The agency expects these rules to go into effect three years after the effective date of a final rule, which was estimated earlier this year to be 24 months away.
Translation: It may be five years before remote ID is fully implemented — a timeframe that could have significant impact on operators’ ability to safely fly beyond the operator’s visual line of sight, which will be necessary for large-scale drone delivery or the use of low-altitude air taxis for urban air mobility services.
The FAA is proposing three methods of meeting remote ID compliance: standard identification, limited identification, or an “FAA-recognized identification area.” Limited identification requires the operator to only broadcast his or her location, but restricts operations to within 400 ft. Compliance through an FAA-recognized identification zone allows communities to apply to establish such an area, where pilots can fly without remote ID capabilities, though they are restricted to maintaining visual line of sight.
The FAA proposes three methods of complying with remote ID requirements, depicted here. (FAA)
Standard remote identification — the main method of compliance for unmanned aircraft — will require the following message elements:
UAS Identification: This requirement can be met either through a serial number assigned to the drone on production, or a ‘session identification number’ assigned by a remote ID unmanned service supplier (USS), referring to UAS companies such as Kittyhawk.io, Altitude Angel, AirMap and others.
The second option — a session ID provided by a remote ID USS — allows for greater operator privacy by publicly masking the operator’s identity and links between repeated flights by the same operator.
“The association between a given session ID and the unmanned aircraft serial number would not be available to the public through the broadcast message,” the FAA’s proposed rule states.
Control Station Location: UAS will have to transmit the location of their control station, which the rule requires to be co-located with person manipulating its flight controls. Latitude and longitude as well as barometric altitude must be included in the message, with the type of position source for the former not specified at this time to allow for flexibility to designers and producers of UAS, according to the FAA. Unlike ADS-B, the rule does not require a secondary geometric measurement of altitude in addition to a barometric reading.
Aircraft Location: Drones will be required to transmit the same location as their control stations, meaning latitude and longitude as well as barometric altitude. This can be avoided through the limited remote ID compliance option, which then restricts operations to within 400 feet of the operator.
Time Mark: Drones will be required to transmit a time mark for both the UAS and the control station location, with the former excluded under limited remote ID compliance. As the drone or control station positions change, the position source — such as a GPS receiver — should provide continuous outputs indicating the new position.
Indication of Emergency Status: The final element of the remote ID message will indicate if the aircraft is experiencing an emergency, such as a lost connection or a downed aircraft. This can be initiated manually by the operator or automatically by the UAS, depending on the nature of the emergency and the drone’s capabilities, according to the FAA’s proposed rule.
Excluded from the remote ID requirement are amateur-built UAS, “UAS of the United States government” (not clarified further), and small unmanned aircraft under 0.55 lbs — meaning DJI’s Mavic Mini, released earlier this fall, will not be affected.
Under the proposed rule, UAS will be required to both broadcast these message elements directly from the unmanned aircraft and simultaneously transmit that same information to a remote ID USS via internet connection. The FAA-recognized compliance zones and limited remote ID methods of compliance are to accommodate operators who wish to avoid networked transmission and instead rely solely on broadcast identification and location. If connection is lost, the operator is expected to land the aircraft as soon as possible.
“For both standard and limited remote identification UAS, at this time the FAA has not proposed any requirements regarding how the UAS connects to the internet to transmit the message elements or whether that transmission is from the control station or the unmanned aircraft,” the proposed rule states.
As currently written, the proposed rule would avoid imposing additional hardware or connectivity-related costs on the industry by allowing the internet connection to be maintained from the control station rather than the unmanned aircraft — a topic that has been hotly debated within the commercial drone world.
ADS-B Out equipment cannot be used to comply with broadcast remote ID requirements under the proposed rule, with the FAA citing the “lack of infrastructure for these technologies at lower altitudes and the potential saturation of available radio frequency spectrum.”
The inclusion of location information for both a drone and its operator are critical for law enforcement seeking to more quickly and appropriately respond to safety or security risks posed by unmanned aircraft.
  | Want more eVTOL and air taxi news? Sign up for our brand new e-letter, “The Skyport,” where every other week you’ll find the most important analysis and insider scoops from the urban air mobility world. |
Discussing of the costs and benefits involved in remote ID requirements, the FAA’s proposed rule cites the provision of “airspace awareness to the FAA, national security agencies, and law enforcement entities … this information could be used to distinguish compliant airspace users from those potentially posing a safety or security risk, fulfilling a key requirement for law enforcement and national security agencies charged with protecting public safety.”
“The FAA envisions it would facilitate near real-time access to the remote identification message elements (paired with certain registration data, when necessary) for accredited and verified law enforcement and federal security partners,” the proposed rule states. “This information could be used to identify and possibly contact the person manipulating the flight controls of a UAS in response to potentially unsafe or nefarious UAS activities.”
“Remote identification information, when correlated with UAS registry information, would inform law enforcement officers about two essential factors: who registered the UAS, and where the person manipulating the flight controls of a UAS is currently located,” the rule adds.
Industry Reacts to Proposed Remote ID Rule
UAS service providers contacted for comment generally commended the FAA on release of this proposed rule, which is unsurprising since it requires all drone operators to use a remote ID USS in order to be compliant.
“We commend the FAA for releasing its proposed rulemaking on remote identification and we look forward to reviewing it,” said AirMap in a statement. “Remote ID is a building block of unmanned traffic management (UTM) and will open the airspace for further and more innovative drone operations.”
Service providers will be required to retain any remote ID message elements for six months from the date they are received.
“We are pleased to see the FAA propose a tiered approach to compliance with increasing equipage requirements based on increased operational risk,” a representative for PrecisionHawk told Avionics in a statement. “Remote ID will solve critical challenges including safety, security and compliance issues. We look forward to delving into the details of the proposed rule and providing formal comments to the FAA in the next 60 days.”
Although the FAA’s timeframe for implementation of remote ID is slower than the industry has hoped for — and this proposed rule was delayed three times before its release — industry leaders are pleased to see its release and look forward to the advanced operational capabilities that will be possible once the final rule is in place.
“One of the major hurdles to safely integrating UAS into the NAS will be past us soon, but it’s important to remember that this is just the beginning,” Mike Pehel, chairman of the InterDrone conference told Avionics. “Remote ID is not the end-all, be-all of the commercial drone industry as there are thousands of pilots running operations safely today. Its importance is more about securing our future and giving our nascent industry a direction.”
Industry standards body ASTM International is expected to publish its remote ID standard ‘in the coming weeks’ through its unmanned aircraft systems working group, under designation F3411.
“Drones are another form of aircraft, and the NPRM goes a long way in truly treating drones as aircraft — including key requirements on operators and manufacturers,” Jon Hegranes, CEO and founder of Kittyhawk.io said of the proposed rule. “Today is a big step for the industry and with the publishing of this rule we expect to see a lot of our customers start to opt into Remote ID compliance well ahead of the potentially 5-year timeline.”