The next step for unmanned airplanes that have already served as spies and become almost another branch of the military: robot-flown aircraft over domestic skies.
“It’s not a sci-fi fantasy. In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration is now studying how to safely fit these unmanned aircraft into the nation’s busy commercial airspace,” says ABC News.
Robot pilots could also work as airborne traffic copes patrolling the border and perhaps even shuttling cargo between cities.
"The success in the military has started to bleed over to the civilian environment," said Wesley Randall, a former Air Force logistics officer and professor at Auburn University’s department of supply chain management. "People are saying this isn’t a niche, gee-whiz technology. These are things you need to think about."
The FAA granted Randall a $300,000 grant to do safety-related analyses of unmanned aerial systems. The government currently permits some law enforcement agencies to fly remote-control aircraft with a waiver from federal rules.
Does this also increase the chances of something going wrong? Possibly.
Questions also arise over whether drones should be part of the FAA’s air traffic control system.
And who’s responsible if there’s a crash.
Randall and a team at Auburn are studying these questions.
Whatever the answers, unmanned aircraft are inching closer to prime-time, typically following the path of technology from military to civilian uses, says Peter Singer, a Senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who writes about aircraft technology.
"Nobody is saying that all humans will be replaced in war," Singer said. "But there are always evolving roles in war and civilian society.”
By David Wilkening
