“We are confident that this will serve as a key driver in the growth of eBee utilization in the United States,” Barrett Mooney, AgEagle’s chairman and CEO, stated. “It will further improve the business applications made possible by our drone platform for a wide range of commercial enterprises which stand to benefit from the adoption of drones in their businesses — particularly those in industries such as insurance for assessment of storm damage, telecommunications for network coverage mapping and energy for powerline and pipeline inspections, just to name a few.”
The testing strategies are a collaboration between the Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP), an FAA-designated drone take a look at web site, and harm biomechanics consultants within the college’s College of Engineering.
In December 2021, the FAA signed off on Virginia Tech’s testing strategies for drone flights over folks. The new testing strategies developed at Virginia Tech had been created in response to a change in coverage introduced by the FAA the 12 months earlier than.
The change laid out a common normal for flying drones over folks, with limitations for flying over giant teams. The normal is predicated solely on the extent of harm the drone may trigger, with 4 risk-based classes the drones may fall into which are based mostly on the quantity of kinetic drive it might switch upon affect.
These classes don’t take note of drones which are designed to crack or break on affect, which dissipates the kinetic vitality of the drones and reduces the quantity of vitality transferred to no matter it hit. Virginia Tech’s testing strategies are supposed to fill that hole to permit extra drones to obtain widespread approval for flying above folks.
“This is a major, major change in how things are done,” Tombo Jones, the take a look at web site’s director, stated. “The rule provided the first clear understanding of what’s required to safely operate over people. Our means of compliance provided the first pathway for utilizing the rule. This approval demonstrates that that pathway is viable.”
Virginia Tech received a 2022 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award from our sister publication for its testing strategies.