Braasch interview excerpt in: “Looser FAA regulations to help drone expansion at universities” by Stephanie Yang, Medill National Security Zone, March 18, 2013

Drones have become increasingly common at U.S. universities for research and career preparation. According to the FAA, 95 schools are certified to fly drones now compared with 23 in an FAA list released in April 2012.

WASHINGTON— Three dozen universities now have government approval to use unmanned aerial vehicles — or drones — for everything from bachelor’s degree programs to environmental surveillance, while others are flying drones closer to the ground without any certification. And the presence of drones on college campuses is expected to increase exponentially as the Federal Aviation Administration works to loosen regulations on authorizing drone flight.

Some privacy advocates say that there need to be clear guidelines protecting privacy as drones are launched for research, law enforcement and some commercial purposes.

“The more that privacy issues surrounding the technology remain unresolved, the more that questions and doubts will swirl around any drone activity, including by universities,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Only government entities, including public universities, are currently able to apply for a Certificate of Authorization to fly unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. But the FAA Modernization Reform Act of 2012 is intended to make the authorization process more accommodating for organizations to use drones.

“There are circumstances already where university students in classrooms may not have to receive a license,” said Amie Stepanovich of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “In circumstances where they do, that process is only going to get easier and more streamlined.”

She said domestic use of drones will increase incrementally until 2015, the FAA’s deadline for streamlining the UAV authorization process. After that, she expects to see an exponential rise.

“As we establish UAS regulations, policieis and stands, we can move from accommodating request to flu via COAs (Certificates of Waiver and Authorization) to more routine oerations,” the FAA said.

Three universities in the United States have degree programs that teach students how to control UAVs: University of North Dakota, Kansas State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Other schools use drones to enhance research and experimental learning programs, such as The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. At Texas State University, students have access to drones through the Meadow Center for Water and Environment to map ecosystems and observe natural resources.

The University of Texas uses drones to evaluate how electronic signals can override the drones’ GPS systems, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Missouri have drone programs in journalism labs to study how they can aid reporters.

Professor Michael Braasch and his colleagues at Ohio University are focusing on improving flight control systems in UAVs for when they enter the national airspace. Despite the increase in FAA-certified universities, there is not a similar increase in university UAV usage, Braasch said.

“What happened is you saw this increase in Certificates of Authorization being issued because people are being made aware that what they had been doing before, which was just essentially flying model aircrafts, [now realized] you have to have permission … for research purposes,” he said.

Braasch said Ohio University had been conducting research with UAV years before the FAA regulations. He works with undergraduate and graduate students to increase the safety of UAVs in anticipation of the drones moving into the public sphere.

Despite research for more than a decade, Braasch said routine unmanned vehicles have not entered public airspace because of the FAA’s caution and regulations.

As a private institution, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University cannot apply for a COA to fly drones. Dan Macchiarella, the chair of aeronautical science, said his program flies UAVs through FAA-certified federal agencies and uses simulation to teach students. He also noted that flying drones without a COA is allowed under hobbyists’ guidelines, which involve keeping them low and away from people.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is one of the few universities in the United States that offers bachelor’s degrees in piloting UAVs. Macchiarella said he hopes the FAA loosens restrictions and implements formalized procedures for unmanned systems in place of the Certificate of Authorization approach.

“In the next two years, the FAA is going to have to come up with a system where many people can fly unmanned systems, not just a select few,” Macchiarella said. “Once that happens, there will be great opportunity for a lot of people to get involved.”

Macchiarella said the university’s UAV bachelor program has grown to 98 students since it began in 2011. Interest in drones is also growing nationwide, he said.

“There are so many uses here in the States for domestic purposes that they can do things that are either too mundane or dangerous for humans to do,” he said.

While drones have many practical uses in universities such as in journalism labs or scientific research, users should not lose sight of drones’ negative applications, Stepanovich said.

“We want to make sure that students and faculty members that use these drones are not becoming desensitized to the surveillance that they’re able to conduct, and are sure to know that these are incredibly invasive tools,” she said.

Stepanovich also said she hoped universities do not divert their research drones for student surveillance.

Mark Blanks, UAV program manager at Kansas State University, said he is aware of the privacy concerns about drones, and state and federal governments are trying to address them as well.

“I think that’s the main thing about privacy. It’s mostly people don’t understand the technology,” Blanks said. “It’s mostly a measure on educating people to the real capability and the rules that are already there.”

The ACLU’s Stanley said the current restrictions on flying UAVs will help address those issues and eliminate problems in the future.

“The FAA has largely been blocking drones from being widely used in America because of the very real safety questions that they raise,” he said. “That’s been a deterrent for everybody.”