ber security and we've identified four barriers associated with regulation and certifications which include things such as air space access. finally we note in our report barriers related to public policy, law and regulation and very importantly social concerns about privacy and safety of autotonomous systems. we recommend eight broad tasks of which we consider the first four to be the most urgent and most difficult. these include fundamental issues about how to characterize the behavior of systems that change dynamically over time. modeling in simulation will be a fundamental importance to the development and deployment of these systems and, finally we discuss a wide range of research issues involving validation, verification and certifications. the remaining four research areas include issues having to do with the safe use of open

source hardware and software and re-examination and redefinition of the role of humans in the operation of these systems. we note in our report that this research program is best carried out by multiple government academic and industrial entities and will require effective coordination at all levels. civil aviation is on the threshold of profound change increasingly autotonomous systems which often happens. early adapters sometimes get caught up in the excitement of the moment greatly exaggerating the promise of things to come and greatly underestimating costs in terms of money time and in some cases unintended consequences or complications.

will indeed be great. there should be equally little doubt that getting there will -- while maintaining the safety and efficiency of u.s. civil aviation will be no easy matter. we believe that the barriers and the research program we've identified is a vital next step and that concludes my testimony. i'll be happy to respond to questions. >> thank you, dr. lauber. mr. wynne. >> chairman smith ranking member bonamici, i'm speaking on behalf of association for unmanned vehicle systems international, the world's largest nonprofit organization devoted exclusively to advancing the unmanned system and robotics system. currently we have more than 7500 members, including over 600 corporate members. as you know, uas increased human

potential allowing us to execute dangerous or difficult tasks safely and efficiently. whether it is assisting first responders with search and rescue missions, advancing scientific research or helping farmers more efficiently spray crops, uas is capable of saving time, money and most importantly, lives. however, the benefits of this technology do not stop there. it has incredible potential to create jobs and stimulate the u.s. economy as well. in 2013 uvsi released an economic impact study that said following the first ten years, uas industry will create more than 100,000 new jobs and have an economic impact of more than $82 million. the benefits i outlined can be recognized immediately once we put the necessary rules in place to enable commercial operations. we understand that a notice of proposal rule-making for small uas from the federal aviation administration is now expected

any day. it cannot come soon enough. establishing rules will also eliminate the current approach of regulating by exemption whereby the faa issues exemptions on a case by case basis for some commercial uas operations under sections 333 of the faa modernization and reform act of 2012. the fact is we don't need a lot of additional research to permit low altitude line of sight operations. a variety of commercial applications can be safely authorized right away. and we look forward to working with the faa to get this done as expeditiously as possible. as we look forward -- as we look beyond the initial phase of uas integration, we will need robust research to further expand access to the air space and address some of the challenges that exist to flying beyond line of sight. areas requiring more research include sense and avoid, command

and control and autotonomus operations. the advancement needs to be a collaborative effort between industry and government. while the industry is investing millions in research and the federal government has various research projects under way, we can all do this better and in a more coordinated fashion. the challenges we jointly face call for a national leadership initiative that places uas integration in a national air space system and all relevant r&d at the top of our country's priority list. importantly, the benefits of this research extend well beyond uas. it will make the entire national air space system safer for all aircraft, manned sxun manned. a deeper national commitment to uasr&d has three main components. first, the industry and its government partners need a holistic research plan that coordinates all uas research. while the faa designated test

sites in operational in 2014, too many questions about the collection sharing and analysis of test data remain unanswered. second, the federal government needs more resources to coordinate uas research. the faa was given $14.9 million to support its uas research this year, which is up from previous years. however, given the scope of the research needed to advance uas integration, we feel this figure is insufficient. third, the government must have a transparent intellectual property of protections provide transparent property protections. companies won't participate in faa or other governmental research activities if their intellectual property isn't safeguarded. the faa has taken significant steps to advance the uas integration but much work remains to be done. auvsi members stand ready to accelerate the r & d efforts

needed for safe integration of uas into the national air space system. thank you again for this opportunity. i look forward to questions. >> thank ? going to disagree to the benefits that uas can provide to you know the economic the efficiencies in business the

job creation the revenue that can come into our country and at the same time no one will argue about the fact we must be extremely thoughtful careful in integrating these systems into the national air space because obviously the faa has a second to none safety record and there's no question that we must maintain that. so, i guess for me today i would just like to talk about, you know where can we start? what can we do now that allows us to bridge that gap between the chicken and the egg. we have the faa test sites, which are great. at the same time it's a little bit of testing in a bubble. to ask research and development companies to rapidly it's rate their technology and have to every couple months figure out a time when they can get into a test site, travel with their entire engineering team, you know did they accidentally leave the spectrum analyzer at

the lab now someone has to fly home for that. it doesn't allow for very rapid innovation, which is obviously not going to let us keep up with the other countries in this world that are absolutely reaping the rewards and benefits of this technology. so you know, additionally, we must have -- we must -- testing it in test sites is not necessarily going to give us the necessary data and log flight to safely integrate these systems into the nas. so i think what can be done in the meantime, and as you'll see here, this is something i want to talk about today when it comes to very small systems, weighs just over a pound. it's actually incredibly advanced uav drone. and so what i wanted to talk about is i think we can start somewhere.

instead of having to regulate and integrate 20 30 and 40-pound systems or 50-pound systems into our national air space all at one time, what i would at least bring to discussion is the possibility of taking very small lightweight systems, as many other countries in the world have done. you know, there's somewhat of a precedence around sub 2 kilogram systems because they carry the least amount of kinetic energy, least risk-based approach the least chance of causing any harm. and so -- all right. we all saw a drone fly. fantastic! incredible! >> i was hoping you would fly it over the whole room not just in one location. >> you said no haircuts. >> i said no haircuts earlier but he could have done it. >> we could have arranged that.

so the point i want to make today is if we start somewhere, as many other countries have with the smallest, lightest weight systems, we're basically using a proportional and risk-based system for regulation so that by integrating today or as soon as possible for commercial use small sub 2 kilogram systems we can now start gathering thousands of hours of flight time figuring out what are the issues when you're actually using these things in the national air space, not just these faa test sites. and i think that's something that could potentially bridge our gap while we're figuring out, okay now how do we integrate the next heavier class? great. we learned a lot from these little tiny ones. while we're learning a lot from the little tiny ones we're capturing the vast majority of the economic benefit of commercial uavs that can do power line inspection. they can have geofences set up. they can return to their home location and land themselves. they log every parameter of the

flight in real time. these small systems can be saving wildfire firefighters' lives. they can be saving the lives of people flying full-scale helicopters over power lines simply to take pictures of the power line. they can be used for a myriad of situations where they can save human lives. so, that's all i wanted to say today, is that, you know maybe we can start somewhere, begreat the lightweight systems, use that for data collection so we can see what happens in the real world, and all satisfy some of that economic benefit all those other countries are experiencing right now. >> thank you, mr. guinn, good suggestions. >> >> dr. hansman. >> you can see uavs are actually one of the most exciting areas in aerospace tarlly aeronautics today. the same technologies we used to enable these cell phones the miniaturization of processing

sensors, coupled with flight algorithms, et cetera, you can see in the stability of the vehicle, high performance in very small packages. today in my office back at m.i.t. in the basement, i have two teams of students building new uav concepts. it's a real exciting area. the thing to remember about uav integration in the nas is there's a huge spectrum of uav sizes ranging from a few grams up to hundreds of thousands of pounds. it's important to note one size isn't going to fit all. we have to have different concepts of integration for. i'll break it into forecaught gores. we have the small uas operating at low altitudes within line of sight of the operator. we actually know how to do that today. we've been doing it for years. we really just need to get going and get that enabled.

that's what you've heard from some of this. there are ult mim other categories. have you high altitude uavs sort of the typical uav the military will want to operate. we sort of know how to do that. we've developed normal operating rules. they're normally operating above where most of the manned airplanes are. it's not too tough of aa problem. the two challenges are small uavs being operated beyond the line of sight of the operator. you don't have visual feedback. you'll rely more on algorithms, more on the technology. and the toughest area is actually uavs whose mission requires they operate in the same air space manned airplanes need to operate. frankly, we don't have good, what we call con accepts of operation for either the small uas beyond line of sight or the the -- research to enable the

concepts of operation. in unique concepts of operation in order to guide the research to develop the standards, to work out the rules, to figure out the human factors. you know for example f we have uavs operator as rfi aircraft in the system today, how does the air traffic controller think about that uav? how do they communicate with them? do they call the operator up on a land line? is there some relay? what happens when there's a loss of communication? how do they think about it? it's actually a tough thing for the faa because there are a lot of policy issues. for example, who do you give priority to? do you give priority to the manned airplane or priority to the uav airplane? we normally would say give it to the manned airplane but what if the uav airplane is doing a critical mission and manned airplane is on the -- who has priority? there's a lot of questions here. so i mean, most of my comments

are my prepared remarks but i would just say i think the takeaway is we really need to develop the con ops and we're behind the eight ball. we really haven't been working the harder problems of the fully integrated uas in some of these issues of beyond line of sight. i will note i am encouraged, for example, by the work that nasa has started on utm concept beyond line of sight so they're starting to attack some of those problems. thank you for the opportunity. >> dr. hansman, thank you for the comments. the committee is going to stand in recess until after the series of three votes. when we return we'll go immediately to our questions. sorry for the inconvenience. i hope we're back within about 30 minutes if you all want to take a break until then. >> thanks.

so the chairman of the house science committee lamar smith of texas recessing this hearing on drones, or unmanned aircraft systems, so that members of the committee can go to the house floor and vote. the house has been debating and voting right now on a natural gas pipeline construction permits bill. a bill that would require the federal approval of such construction projects within a year. that vote now in the house and you can watch that live on our companion network c-span. on the other side of the capitol, the senate has been continuing debate on amendments to the keystone xl pipeline. live senate coverage on c-span2. later on c-span3, 5 p.m. eastern time, president obama will be at boise state university in idaho to speak about some proposals in his state of the union speech last night.

here again, the house science committee and taking a break now on their hearing on research conducted by the faa and nasa on how to integrate drones into the national aerospace system. we'll continue our live coverage when the committee resumes. the world economic forum is under way in davos switzerland. the annual event attended by world leaders and politics, economics, fillphilanthropy and business. china's premiere spoke about some of the crises in the world and spoke about china's development plans and economic structure. we'll watch this as we wait for the house science committee to return from votes on the house floor.

>> i have now the great privilege to introduce his excellency premiere of the people's republic of china. premiere li, it's a pleasure to welcome you back to davos because you have joined us five years ago. and actually we welcome you back to your home because the world economic forum has now two homes. one here, but also we have -- we have our office in beijing. the great relationship we have established and leadership in

your country. i want to thank you for all the support and particularly for your presence. and i should mention, our appreciation also for being accompanied by such a distinguished delegation comprising the minister of foreign affairs, the chairman of the ndrc and asother distinguished members of the chinese administration. you come here at a moment when all our eyes in some way are directed to china. we are living in a world where your country has achieved great strengths, which is using internationally, in a very

responsible and responsive way. as president said, the world is characterized the economy probably by ability by uncertainty this year. so, of course we all are very anxious to hear what policies and what costs, what future you foresee for your country being such a decisive factor in the world -- in the world geopolitics and in global economies. so, ladies and gentlemen please welcome very cordially his excellency premier li keqiang, of the people's republic of china.

>> professor klaus schwab, president, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, it gives me great pleasure to come back to davos after five years and deliver this address on the podium. this morning i had some spare time out of the official program of my visit so i took a bit of hiking nearby.

the town of davos looks beautiful, tranquil and peaceful from atop of the mountain. yet the world outside is not a tranquil place. and it is not peaceful. so we need to jointly find ways to adapt to this new global context. last night professor schwab told me that davos used to be a place for recuperation from lung disease. however, because of the invention of penicillin, davos had transformed its function

from lung to brain. today davos has become one of the world centers for brain-storming. we need new penicillin to treat new challenges in the international situation. the world today is anything but trubl-free. regional hot spots local conflicts and terrorist attack continue. these challenges have emerged one after another and they pose an immediate threat to humanity.

global economic recovery which lack speed and momentum, major economies are performing unevenly. commodity prices are going through frequent fluctuations and signs of deflation have made the situation worse. in fact, many people are quite pessimistic about the future of the world. they believe that the current peace and tranquility is weak. and the prospect of development is also elusive. a philosopher once said that we cannot solve problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. indeed no problems can continue that come from hatred and

isolation. more importantly, dialogue, consultation must be explored to find solutions to new problems. we need to draw lessons from history and pull our collective wisdom to maximize the convergence of interest among countries. what is fortunate is in time of hardship and trial, mankind have always been able to find courage to get out of the predicament and gather strength for change and innovation. in a world facing complex situations, we should all work together to uphold peace and stability. and also stick to the bottom line of maintaining peace and stability. this year marks the 07th anniversary of the victory of the anti-fashionist war. to uphold peace and stability is the aspiration of the people

around the world. the world order established after world war ii as well as generally recognized norms governing international relations must be maintained otherwise prosperity and development could be jeopardized. the cold war and zero sum mentalities must be abandoned. the winner takes all approach does not work. original hot spots and geopolitical conflicts must be peacefully resolved through political means. china is opposed to terrorism. china will remain committed to the path of peaceful development and uphold regional stability. we have no intention to compete with supremacy with other countries. all countries in the world

should cherish peace the same as we protect our eyes so that the achievements and benefits of civilization including reason and justice will prevail in the world of diverse civilizations, we should all seek to live in harmony with each other. in other words, we should uphold the mindset of peaceful co-existence. cultural diversity is the most precious treasure of our planet. the flowers of different civilizations together make up the garden of human society. there should be mutual respect and harmony among different cultures and religions. we need to -- with those who disagree while maintaining natural close ties among those we see eye to eye. like the vast ocean that

maintain all rivers that run into it, countries also need to work together to expand common ground while accepting differences and through inclusiveness and mutual learning. in a world facing volatile economic situation we should all work to opening up and innovation. in other words we should unleash the dynamism. what has happened since the world financial crisis seven years ago prooufdz that acting unity is the only way for countries to get through the difficulties together. we're all dependent in this world. while countries are entitled to adopt economic policies based on their national conditions, they also need to strengthen policy coordination with one another in order to expand convergence of interest and achieve common development. a german proceed verb says when the wind of change blows some

build wars while others build wind mills. we should follow the trend of the times and vigorously promote free trade resolutely protect, and actively expand regional economic cooperation. we should build global value change and seize the opportunities of the new technological revolution. although microeconomic policies are important, structural reform must be carried forward. the need of structure reform is recognized by all countries and it must be carried through no matter how difficult it is as this is the only way to foster conditions conducive to global innovation and generate new momentum for global development.

ladies and gentlemen i know you're all quite interested in the outlook of china's economy. some may even worry they might be affected by china's economic slowdown. and that china's economic transition might cause a potential impact. to ease these concerns i would like to spend more of my time here to talk about the state of china's economy. at present china's economy has entered a state of new normal. the gear of growth is shifting from high speed to medium to high speed. and development is moving from low to medium level to medium to high level. this new situation has made structural reform all the more necessary. it must be noted that the

moderation of growth speed in china reflects the profound adjustment in the world economy and it is also consistent with the law of economics. china's economy is now the second largest in the world, with larger growth at even 7% will produce an annual increase of more than 800 billion u.s. dollars at current price. which is larger than a 10% growth five years ago. with the economy performing within the reasonable range the strength supplied relationship will be eased. the pressure on resources and the environment will be lowered. and the more time and energy

could be devoted to adjusting and upgrading the economic structure, thereby, unleashing greater dynamism for the can economy. thus the economy will enter a more advanced stage with more division of labor and optimized structure. if i could compare china's economy to a running train, what i want to emphasize is that this train will not lose speed or more men item. on the con temporary, it will only be powered by stronger dynamo and run with greater steadiness and bring with it new growth and a opportunities. in 2014 we followed exact lit aforementioned approach. in the face of downward pressure, we did not resort to strong stimulus. instead, we vigorously pursued reforms. the government, in fact led these reforms by streamlining administration and delegating power. this has motivated both the market and business sector.

gdp expanded by 7.4% for the whole year. which was the best among major economies in the world. more importantly over 13 million new jobs were created in cities, which was higher than the previous year. that is, we achieved growth employment despite the economic slowdown. and both registered and surveyed unemployment rates were lower than the previous year. cpi was kept at 2%. lower than the target set at the beginning of the year. these prove the changes china adpopta adopted were right and effective. >> more importantly we have made further progress on structural

reforms. needless to say the chinese economy will continue to face substantial downward pressure in 2015. so what shall we choose to do under such circumstances? shall we go for even higher growth for the short term or for median to higher growth and the high quality of development over the long run? the answer is obviously the latter. we will maintain our strategic focus and continue to pursue a proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy. we will avoid adopting indiscriminate policies. instead, we will put more emphasis on anticipatory adjust adjustment and fine tuning to do an even better job of macro regulation to keep the economy operating within the reasonable range. at the same time we will

upgrade the structure of the economy to achieve better quality and the performance. the series of measures currently being implemented will fend off debt, financial and other financial risks. china's high savings rate which now stands at 50%, generates sufficient funds for sustaining economic growth. over 70% of china's local debt was incurred for infrastructure development and backed by assets. the reform of the financial system is also making progress. what i want to emphasize is that regional or systematic financial crisis will not happen in china and the chinese economy will not head for a hard landing. it must be pointed out that china is still a developing country and still has a long way to go before achieving organization. while peace is the basic condition for china's

development, reform and opening up along with our people's desire for a happy life constitute the strongest impetus in development. and the country's domestic demand will simply generate great potential growth. development at medium to high speed for another 10 to 20 years will bring even bigger changes to china and create more development opportunities for the world. for the chinese economy to withstand downward pressure to maintain medium to high speed of growth and to achieve medium to high level of development we need to say no to traditional mindset, encourage innovative institutions and press ahead with structural reform. we need to adopt more innovative microregulation policies and develop a more vigorous microeconomy. at the same time we need to improve structure related to the urban and rural area regions and

work toward relatively sufficient employment, particularly employment for the young people as well as optimizing income distribution and people's welfare. we will not be afraid of difficulties. we will continue to move along the path of reform and structure with great determination. this way we could shift gear without losing momentum. and achieve medium to high speed of growth and to make sure the chinese economy will achieve medium to high level of development. we need to make reform and innovation the key levers to generating new momentum for development. we need to properly use the hand of the government and the hand of the market and rely on both

traditional and new engines of growth. we will let the market play a decisive role in resource allocation to force a new engine of growth at the same sometime we will give better scope of the role of the government to transform and upgrade the traditional engine of growth. to foster a new engine of growth, we need to encourage mass entrepreneurship. china has 1.3 billion people. a 900 million workforce and over 70 million enterprises and self-employed businesses. our people are hard working and talented. if we could activate every cell in society the economy of china as a whole will bring with more vigor and stronger power for growth. mass could offer source of creativity and wealth. it is a gold mine that we could tap into to raise a level of dwom development.

speaking of this, i think of china's rural reform conducted more than 30 years ago. this process brought farmers initiatives into foreplay and allowed them to decide for themselves. consequently, the problem of hunger that previously haunted china was solved in just a couple of years. in short a structural innovation that unleashed the creativity of the people changed the lot of hundreds of millions in china. two months ago, our visit to a small village in east china. it is a village with 700 households and over 2,800 registered online stores. so one man is doing the work of several men. each day more than 30 million

items of various sorts are sold to different parts of the world. i wish to adhere that these people are working in accordance with the labor law. they're not engaged in any unfair competition. they used their limited time to the extent possible. so this i think, a story of the village speaks vividly of the hard working chinese people actively engaged in entrepreneurship. going forward, china needs new sources of dynamism that comes from -- sparks innovation. mass entrepreneurship and innovation serves to mobilize people's wisdom and power, expand china's consumption, increase social wealth and

improve people's welfare. more importantly it will create opportunity for many and give people the stage to reach life's full potential. it will also bring about greater social mobility, equity and justice. excessive regulation encourages and healthy competition is the way to prosperity. we will deepen reform of the administrative system. this means we will continue to cancel to lower level governments items requiring state counsel review and approval with comprehensive items requiring nongovernmental review and approval. put in place an active list of access. this will help incentivize all market players and will help reduce the possibility of corruption. we will protect intellectual

property rights and do our best to -- we will protect all sorts of lawful property rights. to transform the traditional engine of growth we need to work on supply the public goods. china has made remarkable economic achievements but it remains a weak link in development. china's capital stock on public infrastructure in per capita terms is only 38% out of western europe and 23% that of north america. the development of its service sector is 10 percentage points lower than other developing countries and its rate of urbanization is more than 20 percentage points lower than developed countries. this means a massive space for

increasing public goods and services. to deliver such public goods and services is the government's responsibility. and improving people's lives generates more demand. this year we have identified some key areas for investment including building railways in western provinces constructing water conserve provinces and preventing pollution mrp the government will increase investment in these areas and it will not act alone. efforts will be made to break a monopoly and reform investment of finance system to encourage participation of private and foreign capitals. the model of public/private partnership, or ppp, foreign cooperatives and government purchases of services will be adopted to better leverage various investment to resources.

i have an example here for you. a few years ago a plan was made to build a sewage treatment plant in province in western china and a total of 335 billion rmb was needed. the project later attracted investment from a german company with a german side taking 70% of the total share. i hope you find this case -- the case in point. moving forward we were deep in fiscal and taxation reform particularly those in the service sector and take new steps to promote. we will deepen reform the financial system continue to promote liberalization for interest and exchange rates and accelerate small and medium size institutions. ensure the financial sector plays a better role in serving the real economy. we'll speed up reform of the pricing system substantially reduce the types and items for which government sets the prices

and liberate price regulation to the maximum extent possible. better market regulation world class business and rule of law. in this way, we will be able to provide efficient and quality to all players. china's reform development will bring more business opportunities to the world. we will explore the possibility of management based on active approach and treat chinese and foreign companies as equals. we'll focus on greater openness pension and other medical sectors. and based on experience gained through the shanghai free trade zone, we will steadily advance. these initiatives will help

investors from across countries. china will also expand new approaches to investment cooperation with other countries. china's high-speed railway, nuclear power -- >> our questioning. i recognize myself for that purpose. dr. waggoner mr. williams let me direct my first to you. which is this, what is a realistic deadline for integrating the drones into the national air space system? i mention my opening statement it appears the deadline has slipped but what can drone users and even the american people, the wider audience, what is a realistic deadline for that integration? dr. waggoner and then mr. williams. >> so, chairman, i would answer it that right now we do have a level of integration. so as for public aircraft, they're flying every day. we're, you know, nasa does research, but we're also users. we have unmanned aircraft.

so, for civil applications, we're working very closely with the faa and rtca 220-a to verify and validate these key technology barriers, sense and avoid, the radio communications, the displays for the ground control stations, to allow the faa to determine these minimum operational performance standards. >> mr. williams, when might we expect the faa to propose some rules? >> well, the faa is working closely with our administration partners in the rule-making process. and we're doing everything we can to get that small unmanned aircraft rule out. but our main focus is to get it right. we -- the rule-making process is deliberative. >> i understand. when do you think you might get that out? >> i -- at this point, i can't give you a firm deadline. we're still working on the -- >> do you have a goal in mind?

i mean, you've got a lot of -- a lot of people across the united states waiting. and do you have any kind of a working deadline or working goal? >> our goals are to get it out as quickly as we can, as long as we get it out right. get it out right. >> is it likely to be this year or next year? >> i can't speculate. my own personal hope is that we get it out as soon as possible. but it's got to go through the regulatory process that has been put in place by congress. we're working our way through that. >> i'm going to press you one more time. you're slipping off my question here. how long does the regulatory process normally take in a situation like this. >> you have to understand, this is a very complex rule making. >> never mind, i can tell i'm not going to get the answer i hoped for but we thank you for expediting the process as much

as you can. what technologies need to be prioritized before the nas integration? what are the -- >> well, i refer to what we believe is probably the highest. and i think a couple of the other witnesses also mentioned the need for technology that provides the equivalent of see and avoid, the sense and avoid technology that needs to be in full for full integration of a wide range of these vehicles in to the system. >> thank you. what is the private sector contributing to this integration process? we have the government on one side, maybe not on one side but as a part of the process we have the private sector as part of the process as well. so what are the contributions of the private sector to the integration? >> my believe mr. chairman is that the industry is going to

bring the lion's share of the technology solutions as it should. companies like 3-d robotics will at the end of the day -- they're constructing the devices, they're developing the software and not just directly in the industry, the microprocessor speeds are getting faster, et cetera, et cetera. so this was really the spirit of my testimony was industry should really be doing the lion's share of this. we should be prochg the concepts to the satisfaction of the regulators in this r & d process. >> thank you. anything to add? >> yes. to give a specific example of course these companies are integrating and innovating these advanced technologies such as sense and avoid and geofencing and return to home technology. but to give a specific example of what 3-d robotics is doing is if i fly my drone today outside, you can log in to droneshare.com and watch my entire flight.

automatically. if i choose any of our members around the world choose to make their profile public every single time you fly, that log file is uploaded auto magically from your smart device into the cloud to droneshare.com and we're able to now collect tens if not hundreds of thousands of hours of data on what are the fringe cases. right? what are the fringe cases withu÷&0ç we start integrating hundreds of these thousands of systems into airspace. >> you mentioned the drone we saw a while ago in the room. it was fairly sophisticated. what's its cost what's its range, what's its use? >> that's more of a hobby grade drone. it is called the bee-bop. a full high-definition cameras displays on your smart device or long-range controller. it has barometric readings,

being a being aa full flight control system on-board and it is $499. >> what's the range? >> depending on if you are using a smartphone you are restricted to wi-fi range. you go if you use their controller you can get up to a kilometer of range. >> okay. thank you. doctor, you mentioned during your testimony what your students are working on in the classroom. i just wondered if we can ektxpect any kind of breakthroughs -- you might get some examples of what they are working on but you see it from a hands-on approach. >> one vehicle that our students prototyped two years ago is a small uav that can do a one-hour surveillance mission which is launched out of an anti- missile flare canister on a military airplane. it is a two-inch by 2 1/2-inch by 7-inch package. gets shot out at 300 gs.

this was a concept that nobody in the air force thought would work. the students actually demonstrated it. it is now a development program where the vehicles they developed are being launched out of f-16s right now at edwards. >> i hope that's not classified information. >> no. >> that's intriguing. >> yeah. >> well, thank you all for your answers. now i'll recognize the gentle with a from oregon for her questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and thank you to our very accomplished panel of witnesses. as you heard in the opening remarks i gave, oregon does have three test sites through the pan pacific uas test range. but by the university of alaska fair banks, we've talked a lot about the benefits of the technology. one of the concerns that i've heard from constituents in oregon who are working in the developing industry is that there's still some problems with advancing the testing of their products especially for small

companies that don't have a solid revenue strange. and the test range is, despite being set up to provide a space where the development can take place, may be prohibitively expensive for small companies and prevent -- there may be other logistical barriers. could you expand just a little bit on how the faa could work with the test ranges to best address these concerns? then i want to allow time for a couple other questions. >> sure. really quickly, right now there's not really a set rndzing of understanding of how you even stul a time to go to the range. there is no way to log in to a system and say when is the next available day. it's not a matter of them being too busy, because quite frankly there's not a whole lot of places or companies using these test ranges. it is more a matter of what is the process. there is a lot of bureaucracy getting even the approval to go to a test range and test fly for a few days. you don't know if that's going

to be 30 days or two months. >> i'm going to ask mr. williams about ñd ÷that too. first, thanks for your association work and what you've been doing mr. wynn. i want to echo comments already made by the chairman and some of my colleagues about the concerns about the rule making. somebody made a comment about the proposed notice -- noticed of proposed are rule making is expected so we were encouraged to hear that news. i actually sent a letter to secretary fox, joined by several colleagues concerned about the timeline. of course we want this to be done right and we don't want to jeopardize safety but we're concerned about not only workforce development and those challenges of recruiting people into this industry if we don't have that certainty, but also for these new companies attracting private self-ment. have you noticed some particular challenges because of the lack of certainty in attracting venture capital to the industry? >> oh absolutely, ma'am. thank you for the question.

there's -- if i'm investing money in a project like this i want to know what the go ln go-to-market strategy is, what the return on investment is. if i don't know when i can fly and when i can pursue some of the commercial opportunities that are out there it's a big barrier. so there is i think already the fact that there's money flowing in there's tremendous product being developed says this is a great investment opportunity and a great business opportunity and a job creator which is something we need to be paying attention to. and so while we want to get this right, we want to do it once for the various levels and we're on a certain trajectory here, we think there are opportunities immediately that require very little regulation and some of the countries abroad that deck straighted this. >> thank you. mr. williams, you heard talk

about some of the possible ways of moving forward. of course it is not a one-size-fits-all because of the various sizes and capabilities and ranges. but i wanted to ask you first about the testing sites. some companies have suggested maybe performing initial tests at a range where their safety can be demonstrated but then may be performing additional tests closer to home. could that outline potential changes or could you talk about some potential changes that could allow some more flexibility especially for the small developers. then i also wanted you to respond to the concern about the small companies having access and being able to test. >> so first the small companies have access to our experimental awareness approval process which goes back to the manned aircraft process. it is the same regulations that are applied. we're in the process of updating that to make it a little more

user friendsly for unmanned aircraft operators to get through that process. on the test side front we have set up a program to enable all of the test sites should they choose to do so to have the authority to issue experimental air worthy certificates on beof ha of the f spachltaa streamlining the process. we think that's a strategic benefit that test sites can offer to the industry and we're constantly looking at ways to streamline our processes and work to enable these new companies to test their aircraft in a safe and by the rules way. >> thank you. i see my time has expired so i will submit my section 333 exemption question for the record. >> thanks. the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. lucas, is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would direct my question to dr. wagner and mr. wynne and mr.

hanson. in recent years agriculture's been one of the bright spots in our nation's economy. can you speak for a moment about the potential applications in agricultural settings and what benefits these might provide for both producers and consumers? whoever? >> i could start. i have just a little bit of experience. what we saw some high school students do this year who had the challenge of developing a unmanned aircraft to surveil -- i think it was about 100 scare mile farm, a large farm, of corn for european corn growers. these kids -- incredible kids from all over the country came up with a number of different solutions. but they showed that there were viable solutions that were affordable usable for the farmer for precision agriculture where they could precisely locate where there were issues, either with fertilizer or pesticides where

they needed to be applied and could precisely do that. so we saw that as an opportunity that shows that it's -- there's a market out there for that work. and that's part of what is behind our more mid-term work on this uas traffic management. so allowing a farmer or a commercial operation to go in to a farm and do that kind of surveillance operations at low altitudes. very safely and in a way that would be very cost-effective. >> so ag applications are already ongoing in other parts of the world. in japan, for example, where you have very small rice patties, we're seeing applications there. it is considered one of the number one applications. there's significant interest on the part of agricultural departments to use these vehicles. in fact, they're frustrated by the rule like everybody else in that that's difficult for them to get exemptions to go up and

do experiments. so it is one of the big opportunities, spaces. >> if i can, maybe provide a specific example of how one of these very small lightweight systems can provide real benefit to the farmer. so we had one of the top private vineyards in napa valley contact us and say we've been leenk about these drones what can we do with them. everyone talks about the super high-tech ability to do higher speck troe image spectro imagery and most of these have not seen a look-down image of their vineyards. we went out, flew around, took a lot of pictures looking down in the back of the truck at the farm stitched those together into a photo mosaic which allowed him to see a very high-resolution image of the

crop and for the generations that they've had that vineyard he looked down and said wow. look over here in the corner of the vineyard here where -- see how this is actually a little darker green than this whole area? you goes you can't see that when you walk the rows of the vineyard because when you're up close you don't see the minute differences in the green. this must be the fact that there is a slight elevation change there which is sucking more water down in that area. that means we need to harvest these grapes two to three weeks earlier than the rest of the vin guard vinyard. he then walked out, took some grapes, skwishd them in a bag and you can clearly taste the difference. that happens in two hours. >> congressman, thank you for the question. the numbers that were put together in 2013, the $82 billion in the first ten years after we get access to the national airspace system, we think as high as 80% of that

could be agriculture. >> absolutely. dr. williams i come from a state where a chamber of commerce likes to first use the phrase significant weather events occur in common place in a common way. my home state is making a lot of investments in weather related research. one of things i understand is a challenge is this requirement to obtain a certificate of authorization, coa, or a section 33 exemption, which can be kind of challenging and cumbersome. what's the faa doing to expedite the approval process for this kind of thing? >> we're actually working in both areas to prove the processing of the approval. most of the -- understand the section 333 approvals are for the aircraft. the coa process is for the airspace in order to operate an unmanned aircraft. you can't really comply with the see and avoid rules.

we have to give you a or authorization to do that. that's the coa process. that process is undergoing a revamp inside the faa. we are in the process of building new software for folks using it. we think that's going to be a major step forward. we have achieved a tremendous amount of progress with our public partners accelerating their approvals. we've reduced the overhead for many of the frequent users like nasa. they have a much easier way forward. on the 333 side we're also working hard to streamline that process. we put together a tiger team that's in the process of developing a streamlined and more efficient process to move those forward quicker. you got to understand the exemption process was never intended as an approval mechanism. it was intended to deal with exceptions. special cases. we're trying to make that up as we go to figure out a way to accelerate it to -- it is a regulatory process so there are rules that have to be met as we

go through it. we are trying to find the right balance. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. lucas. the gentleman from illinois, mr. lipinski is recognized for his question. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for holding this hearing. something we're all very interested in and it's critical that we get a lanl on this. we don't want to -- on one hand we want innovation to move forward and all the opportunities that are brought out for business purposes and others -- other purposes from uas. but we know there is a lot of issues also that need to be dealt with. so i wanted to ask mr. williams and anyone else can jump in after mr. williams if they have anything to add. i want for talk about the concern about the number of uas near-misses being reported. my district includes midway airport so it's especially

important to me. also lewis university airport in my district. so given the rapid increase in number of small uas in use both for hobby an commercial purposes, what's being done to better understand the risk of uas collision and what's being done to track near-misses? >> so we're not process of building a tracking system modeled on the way we track the laysary incidents that have been going on. we are also working hard on an education campaign to try to -- we believe that most of the people that are flying these aircraft near airports just don't understand the area they're flying in and the rules about where they can and can't fly. so we have an -- in partnership with the small uav coalition the unmanned aircraft vehicles international, and the academy of model aeronautics we have a campaign going on called know

before you fly that we are working to find any means we can to educate the public about where they fly. because primarily the faa is interested in compliance with our rules and we believe the best way to achieve that compliance is through education. so we're working lard to make that happen. on the research side -- i'm sorry -- you had another question about the research? >> what's being better done for understand the risk of uas collision. >> right. so we actually have started this year a research initiative to look into what the potential is for -- really to assess the risk of an unmanned aircraft to a manned aircraft. that project is just getting off the ground this year and we're accelerating it thanks to the additional funding that congress provided us in our research budget this year. we should be able to accelerate that and move it forward more rapidly than we have been able to. >> anything else that any witnesses think should be done?

that's not being done? >> i just want to emphasize that we thank the faa for their help with this campaign to educate. i think in many instances it really is an education challenge today. obviously commercial operations are not -- are not allowed at this stage until we get a rule. but the education campaign is really about keeping the uas under 400 feet, five miles from an airport within line of sight. stay away from crowds. it is basic common sense and we think in many instances it is just a question of education. we've had tremendous response from the aviation community on this. we've got new partners in nb p.a. a, e a nbsachltnbaa eaa. >> before my time runs out i want to ask about test sites. the faa established six test sites to enable uas research and

these sites are operating under an agreement that may restrict the faa's role in directing research. what steps is the faa taking to ensure that the test sites are being used to address the nation's top research priorities and are there any barriers that need to be addressed. >> back in the fall we released to the test sites a list of over 100 research areas that we believe we could benefit from having them look into. i think there's been a lot of misunderstanding about what they can and can't do at our behest. our only rule is that through procurement rules we have to if we're going to direct one of our contractors and other transaction agreements we have with them amount to a contract between them and us if we're going to direct work we have to pay for it. but we can also agree to work together with in-kind resources through these agreements.

so -- but bottom line is to all of it all we have to do is document it in those agreements and we can work together on any research project that's of interest to those test sites. and i believe that we've communicated that to them and i believe that they understand the space station pretty well at this point. >> thank you. i have other questions that i'll submit for the record. i yield back. >> on behalf of a new member of the committee, barbara comstock from virginia, i'd like to put a letter into the record. without objection, so entered. the gentleman from california, mr. rohrabacher is recognized for questions. >> thank you very much. now let me see if i'm getting all of of this straight now. the faa actually will approve mr. gwynn's drones before you

were permitted to fly them? is that correct? who can answer that? >> sir the two processes run parallel so that when the approval to fly the aircraft without an air worthiness certificate that's done through the section 333 stemgsexemption process -- >> that approval is based on the design of the aircraft and its capabilities. start? is that right? >> yes. and the operations. they want we want to upgrade it in this particular area. we look at whether it is safe to operate. looking at conflicts with manned aircraft. >> this is both faa in both cases.ñ one is the safety of the equipment itself, and then the safety of the actual instance that they want to use it this specific situation. are we having any trouble with the actual approval of the system itself?

meaning your crafts that you can bring before them for approval. is that -- am i understanding, do you think that should be streamlineded? >> yes, sir. so when one of our customers wants to use a system for looking at photo mosaics of a farm so that they can see where the water's going and when to pick the grapes, they need to take that system and get a section 333 exemption which is where the faa determines is this aircraft -- >> once you've gotten that from this -- >> well, first you have to get that. so far of all the companies -- >> but after that you don't have to gret get it again. >> so far. for the section 333. so far 14 have been granted. >> out of how many? >> is that correct? >> out of how many requests? >> out of everyone in the country that wants to fly their drones. oh is that right? 14? >> but the process is being improved and they'll be coming out -- >> so it is difficult first to get it 14 out of however many

thousand. then once you have a section 333, you have to get the certificate of authorization to fly in a specific area. >> what we have here is technology and the technological capability are far surpassed the ability about making decisions about standards and general rule making. that's what we have to catch up with. this isn't the first time that's happened in history i'm sure. and i hope that -- can you tell me can anyone here tell me which is more dangerous, a small privately owned airplane flying from here to there or a drone flying from here to there? >> i've had several friends that have been in helicopter crashes actually specifically going out the side of the door taking pictures of power lines. so i can't speak to the factual evidence here but in my estimation, having a two or three-pound drone flying over national grade power line taking photos, if it were to fail in any way, shape or form it

doesn't have to worry about auto rotating down to the ground when they're already flying outside the chart. all it does is bounce off the power line fall to the ground. you take another one out of the truck and keep inspecting. so my guess is that is that would be much more safe and would allow us to start saving lies today. >> we've actually done analysis on this and it really depends on the size of the drone. so for a small drone the risk to people on the ground and to people in the air is much lower. >> has anybody ever been hurt from a crashing drone on the ground? >> i mean there's been, "ouch. you hit me in the head with that drone." >> all right. how is the faa planning to do these testing areas test sites that have been established and the to help you try to determine whether or not these pieces of kwichlt equipment should be approved. could someone tell me what they do at those test sites? >> well, the primary intention for the test sites is to provide an opportunity for manufacturers

to do their developmental test and evaluation in support of moving forward toward approval. >> that's what we had spent $11 million on that providing that to you last year and now that budget's been increased? is that right? >> no, sir. there hasn't been any appropriation to the faa to directly support those test sites. we funded it out of our existing appropriations bill. >> is it possible that when we have these companies that are seeking profit, which is a good thing, and think they have technology, which is a good technology, do you think that in order to facilitate and to move the process along that maybe it would be good to have the companies reimburse the government for the specific test? or be able to certify certain people to conduct those tests other than government employees? >> i believe that's the actual intent of the test sites.

the cost for running the test sites is currently being born by the states who sponsored them. and they're getting compensation from the companies who come to them for testing or the government -- in a couple cases there has been some government testing done there. the government doesn't fund those testing costs. >> we've only had 14 of these things approved so i can't imagine we've much revenue so far. >> there is a small number of companies covering those costs which is why it is pro hintively expensive to go to those sites to test versus going to canada or mechanics dough, our neighborsor mexico, our neighbor. >> my family who was catching a plane back to california just happened to be coming in at the time when that drone was flying around and i guess my son got an interesting opinion of what his father does for a living. >> it kind of shows you how these vehicles actually

stimulate the interest of this sort of next generation. >> thank you, mr. rohrabacher. the gentle woman from connecticut is recognized. >> thank you with be mr. chairman, and to the ranking member for having this hearing today. thank you all for your testimony. unmanned aircraft systems have already significantly impacted as we've discussed today, particularly in the field of agriculture changing our farmers do business and increasing yields and decreasing the use of pesticides. this is a you will a very good thing. coming from the state of connecticut where we've been long-time leaders in rave yags and aerory aviation and aerospace we are very excited about these opportunities. but we also live in a very congested airspace. mr. lipinski and i serve on another committee where we are dealing with the same issue. let me get you to explain on the r & d side what are the risks we should be looking at what should had be the research

priorities to avoid those issues which are a little different than the agriculture settings. those are the what do you do with laguardia and logan issues. particularly as we follow up on the exciting possibility of improving or infrastructure, the grid look grid, looking at lines. these are very important opportunities but again they do pose risks particularly in the congested airspace. anyone who wants to jump in and help us guide through research capabilities, what are the risks we face and on the r & d side what should we be prioritizing to address those risks yo you the side of regulation. actually understanding. >> so -- go ahead. >> so from a risk standpoint if you look at the risks of uav operations, we don't have the risk to the passengers on-board so the two risk areas are ground impact hazard. people being hurt by drones coming out of the sky or mid-air collision risk. the ground impact hazard you can do the analysis. it really scales significantly

by vehicle mass. so we -- in studies have been done and can you look at risk versus reliability required to compare those with manned airplanes in set standards there. from the airborne collision risk standpoint it also scales with size. for very very small uavs, we design airplanes so they can take bird strikes. so an interesting research question is what is the threshold mass for uav for which the existing regulatory guidance on bird strike criteria would allow you to work there. above that size you need some method to separate the airplanes. the easy thing is to do segregation. okay? that's where we're working now. the hard is to come up with concepts of operation that would allow you to operate in the same airspace and be coordinated in some way. that's what we get to work more is the concepts. >> i would agree with that. i think that's why many other countries said if it is less

than t2kg, it is going to be like those bird strikes. the other thing like i said before, by going to faa test sites with the team of ph.ds flying a perfectly assembled drone, we're not figuring out what the fringe cases are. we're not figuring out what the real risks are when you integrate thousands of these systems and the concept of integrating thousands and thousands of systems that are farm beyond what would be considered a bird strike is extremely scary. so to me, starting with those lightweight systems so we can collect all that data and start figuring out, okay here are the fringe cases with be here are the failure points here are the risks. now how do we mitigate those for the next set heavier aircraft. >> i might add, if i may, that one of the four high-priority most difficult research projects that we identified in our study had to do with these very

issues. the question of verification validation and certification and how you go about setting appropriate standards of risk that apply to these light small uas systems in a world that was basically created to deal with manned aircraft systems of much larger mass. it is a very different world and demands very high priority in our view. >> and the larder problem of interoperability particularly with the larger aircraft. so that's something nasa has taken on and we're doing that research. so the sense and avoid work. but also as you -- the sense and avoid systems work, how you display that information to the pilot so that they can make informed decisions and we're doing research in both of those areas in support of the faa's standards development. >> thank you. that's all very helpful and those who have thoughts on how

this might integrate with the next gen system and if there are issues around uas we should be thinking of as we aggress next gen as part of the faa authorization, i'd -- >> we need to leverage off our investment investment. >> thank you very much. >> the gentleman from california, mr. knight is recognized for his questions. >> thank you mr. chair. thank you for having this esteemed panel. i have just a couple statements, maybe a quick question. the uas systems have helped quite a bit. i know that these aren't something new. they've been around for 50 or 60 careers. i can remember the program which helped us get into the fourth and fifth generation fighters that we have today. and also i appreciate what they do to help pilots have a safer flight. the gcas system that we are work rg on right now in the united states air force and navy, we

put that on a uas system because flying an airplane into the ground was not what a pilot wanted to do. so you put that on a uas and hopefully the software worked, which it did, and the plane didn't crash. and then you might get a test pilot to do that. but my questions are more in line with privacy and how congress is going to move forward in the next 20 years, especially when it comes to law enforcement. law enforcement has been part of the uas discussion over the last ten years especially if you have a helicopter that is chasing a bad guy and he flurs that area down there, we have decided that's okay. but if you used a uas, we have decided that that's probably not okay. so the discussion is going to go and i can already see how do we go about that? how is the law making? how is the rule making going to be when we talk about uass in the law enforcement arena.

>> i think that's a great question. thank you. i think for law enforcement it is probably the easiest to solve because you just simply say these are the rules for whether or not you can engage with the uas and whether or not that evidence can be admitted into a hearing because obviously the point of law enforcement is to stop crime. the only way to stop crime is to be able to convict. only way to be able to convict is to use admissible evidence. right? i think that's pretty simple to say this is what's allowed and not allowed. you have notice of proposed rule making, people vote and decide. i think the stickier point is the guy that's not being regulated, the hobbyist who's using these systems to peek into somebody's window. right? there is a lot of people who have those concerns. they're valid concerns. but i would hearken this back to when phone manufacturers started putting cameras in cell phones. people were very concerned about this. samsung, as a matter of fact, it was a rule that you could not have a camera equipped phone on the campus of samsung. right? now obviously every single employee has a camera in their

pocket. so i think that people realize with this new technology that there's probably not tens of thousands of would-be criminals just waiting for this perfect technology to be able to spy on each other. i think it is just a matter of education, what can you get at the apple store, wireless baby monitors and drop cams and things like that that could easily be set up silently and very small and not noticeable in somebody's house versus a loud blinky lit-up drone flying out the window. the reason -- i mean that's -- so i think it is just a matter of education and a matter of saying, let's leverage existing anti-invasion of privacy laws and make sure that those laws are applied to whatever technology is being used to invade somebody's privacy. and there should be consequences. >> i guess what i would follow up on is that we already have an existing technology that does this, that chases bad guys from the air. so i guess, mr. williams you can answer this. would the faa decide that they

would follow the same exact rules as maybe an air unit does in today's law enforcement? would they follow the same rules or would they be able to do different things because a helicopter can't fly like a uas can. a helicopter can't do the same things a small uas can do. that i think will be a question for congress are we going to lax those rules to make it more available for the troops on the ground, the cops on the ground, to use it in a different manner. >> well, one of the initiatives we took back in 2012 was to set up a special process called for in our reauthorization of 2012 for law enforcement. we have been working directly with individual law enforcement agencies around the country. there are some that have had some spectacular success with their aircraft and it is a priority for my office to continue to support law enforcement use of unmanned aircraft and find ways to approve their operations.

i have two individuals who do that as their full-time jobs. so we very much support finding ways for law enforcement to use unmanned aircraft safely. >> thank you. >> congressman, i just wanted to point out that avsi, we did work with the international association of chiefs of plifs to police. i'd be happy to submit those for the record. is there thank you, mr. knight. the gentleman from washington, mr. newhouse, recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank all of you today for being here to enlighten us about this very exciting and important subject. being in agriculture, i, too share a vision for the future and how we can produce our crops more efficiently and effectively. i think i have heard a couple things. at least two today that talks about the potential of the unmanned industry as far as both

public and privately. and then also the importance of safety integrating these unmanned systems into the national airspace. speaking about that and realizing the speed some of these innovations are happening, certainly seems safety should be a primary focus of what we're talking about. so i'm curious about the investment of harmonizing these systems with manned platforms specifically talking about collision avoidance systems in general. perhaps specifically an adsb transponder. those kinds of things. if you could talk a little bit about that, i would be appreciative. >> i think that you've already addressed several of the key considerations that we took up in our report. clearly in order to achieve success in integrating these systems in to the airspace and

in realizing the potential benefits of these systems we have to do it in such a way that safety is not adversely impacted. it will not fly so to speak, to introduce these things in such a way that it imposes or adds risk to the system. dr. hansman already identified a couple of the key risks collision with another aircraft an collision with the ground, and trying to systematically understand those things is very important and the faa's effort to undertake a systematic analysis of risk as it applies to these systems is an equally vital part of this. one of the top four and most difficult research projects that we identified was what we called continuous operation without human intervention. and in order for uass to do

this basically a uas must have the capability of doing what any manned aviation system does in the present environment. so you've got to make up for all of the missing sensors, taking people's eyeballs out of the vehicle. you have to somehow substitute for that. the ability of humans to make decisions in real time bases on unexpected or unanticipated situations. you have to on able to build that in to the technology in order to maintain the levels of risk that we have now. so these are of fundamental importance as far as our study is concerned. >> thank you. and then just another question. i can't let the faa off the hook totally. . a recent interview on "business insider insider" magazine, the ceo of amazon, jeff bezos was asked

the question about when they might possibly be delivering packages using these systems. maybe you have read that article. but it highlights the perhaps some of the -- i can term overregulation in the r & d n u.s. -- in the u.s. he answered a longer answer that i don't have time for but technology is not going to be the long pull. the long pull will be regulation. so as has already been talked about, a dozen or 14 approvals already for commercial uass. could you explain why there are maybe hundreds or even thousands in other countries that have been approved and here we lag behind, so to speak? >> well, i'm not sure i agree that we've lag behind. yes, we don't have a specific rule for small unmanned aircraft but we also have the most complex airspace in the world. we have the largest number of

general aviation operators in the world and it's a different regulatory and legal framework leer than in some of the other countries. part of my job is to interact with my counterparts from around the world and understand what they're doing and benefit from their experience. so we're taking those things in to consideration as we move forward. there is -- there are multiple paths for commercial operations. we have two operators approved up in alaska who are using cert.e ing certificated aircraft that have gone through the manned certification process, adapted for use by -- for an unmanned aircraft obviously all the rules for manned aircraft didn't apply to them. but there are commercial operations are available that way in addition to this new way we found through the section 333 process that's designed to bridge us to that regulatory

environment we are trying to achieve with the small unmanned aircraft rule. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the gentleman mr. texas, mr. weber with be is recognized. from thank you, mr. chairman. and i don't know where to start. are the permits issued -- there's been -- let me understand this. i came in late. so there's been 14 permits approved? is that right? >> for small civil aircraft operators, yes. we have two certificated aircraft that are operate region commercially in alaska and there are a tremendous number of over 700 public aircraft operators -- in other words, government operators -- that we've approved. >> are they based on size mr. williams? category 1 might be that you could fly up to something that's

200 pounds@ 500 pounds? or is there a weight limit? >> well, the faa in general takes a risk-based approach to all our approvals. the reason there are different levels of approval is there's different levels of risk. for these very small ones that we're now approving through an exemption process we are essentially, because of their size, weight and operating environments approving -- basically waiving most of the manned aircraft rules so they don't have to apply. >> what's. a small weight? >> under 55 pounds was legislated in our 2012 reauthorization. was defined as small in that legislation. >> are there approved operators that get above 55 pounds? >> yes, sir. on the public aircraft operation side they go up to the global hawk aircraft that both nasa and dod fly is approximately the same size at a 727. >> are they able to cross in to mexico and canada without violating airspace issues?

>> i believe the dod flies around the world with their unmanned aircraft. and they're following the iko rules for manned aircraft the same way as they do for -- >> what about private companies that they cross from the united states into canada? >> we currently don't have any approved private companies that are operating across the borders. and there is a committee -- or what they call a panel has been formed at iko to develop the international standards and recommended practices for unmanned aircraft crossing between countries. so that regulatory framework internationally is being developed. >> so when a company gets approval, it has permitted or licensed? what do you call it? >> we call the pilots getting certificated. >> certificated. okay. does that process of

certification get reviewed after one year two years? >> from a standpoint of if the aircraft is approved through a type certificate that it's indefinite. there's no restriction on that. for the processes that we're doing through the exemptions, those are good for two years. >> okay. so if a uav -- if one of these units falls out of the sky and hits a car on the ground, liability insurance? do people market insurance for these things? >> yes, sir. there is insurance available through the multiple different insurance companies. >> okay. the little cameras on -- i you talked about the high-definition camera. are they able to transmit video back on the ground? is that pretty much standard? >> yeah, absolutely. >> is it captured for lack of a better term in a little black

box? does it record its own? >> there is a myriad of ways to do it. we can actually record on the ground at the same time we're recording a much higher bit rate stream on the camera in the air so for later review if you need to zoom in to an image and check a power line. >> does it have the capability of storing that right on-board? >> absolutely. yeah. most of the cameras that are on-board have their own memory card slots and you are storing it right on the memory card. >> i know this is getting way out there, but are people able -- you think about people hacking in to different things. are they going to be able to hack in to these and commandeer these? >> that's a good question. i think that probably for the doctor a much better question. >> i will just add this. cyber physical security is one of the key issues that we identify in our report. it is a concern and it needs to be addressed from the outset. >> how many drone manufacturers are there? >> 10, 20. >> at least hundreds.

>> hundreds. how many in the usa? >> much less than anywhere else in the world. 3-d robotics, our company, is the largest. >> one final question. you see planes fly over with the number on the bottom. you can identify by the number. are the drones numbered, identified? >> they're not today but that's one of the considerations especially for the heavier systems to have a tail number. >> one more question, if i may, mr. dharmchairman. so google has a car they can drive. can you program one of these drones to go somewhere and back and basically never touch it? >> absolutely. yes. just right from your smartphone if you need to. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman from florida, mr. posie, is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. i'd like to thank all the witnesses for are showing up today and bringing their great testimony. i had opportunity to read the written testimony. this is one of those days where another committee meeting with votes required conflicted with the early part of the schedule so some of us didn't get to see the demonstration of your

vehicle. if the chairman would indulge us, i'd be interested -- i think some of the others would be interested in seeing it. >> do we still have the vehicle and the pilot? >> we can get it back up in the air in just about one minute. >> that will work. let's have another quick, brief demonstration that perhaps can use more airspace this time. >> get saucy with it. >> we'll define haircuts within two feet of someone's head. so if you can stay above that. >> he's going to show you leaf blower mode with your papers on your desk. we didn't give you much advance notice here. >> it will take him 30 or 45 seconds to connect to the wi-fi network before he can take off. did you have any quick questions in the meantime? >> silence is golden nen on this

committee, too. >> perfect. sounds good. >> another fun fact is that he'll be piloting this drone from his iphone. as well as seeing a live hd feed right on his phone that's being digitally stabilized. pretty cool for 500 bucks. >> we will eall have one by the next time you come back to testify here. >> well my kids got them for christmas. >> whoops. >> and that's your worse wo case scenario. oh, my gosh! drone crash. >> maybe we won't fly over people. >> as he's flying over you just do this. just in case.

>> a fringe case is when you're asked to fly a drone in 60 seconds in front of congress. this is the kind of data we need to be collecting out in the real world. >> tell you what, just to take the pressure off of you, maybe we ought to -- okay. all right. here we go. there we go. okay.

can you head towards mr. posie? just keep it right out of -- there we go. leaf blower mode. here we go. ky push it around a little bit to show its stability? or do you want to? >> thanks again for that. mr. posie, anything else? >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman from illinois

is recognized. >> well, thank you all for being here. this is important and interesting and really do appreciate the work that you're doing and we do want to be helpful and make sure that we do this well. with development and usage i know of uas expanding certainly is crucial that we understand the research our government is doing especially research that will affect the rule making process faa is currently undergoing. from a competitive standpoint it is also crucial we do this right so we aren't encouraging businesses to move elsewhere or denying access to researchers for the best most cost-effective tools they need to do their work. sometimes i find the faa's process a little bit confusing and i agree with the need for public safety. that should always be our top goal. but right now my fear is in the same of safety. i am afraid we are stifling innovation and research opportunities by keeping pretty harmless uass out of the sky. at the same time on an unrelated topic but one that's important to me, i've been trying to get

answers from the faa about their air traffic controller hiring practices which recently were changed and i believe could jeopardize the safety of airline passengers across the we'll continue to try and get answers there from the faa. but getting to questions mr. williams, in early december 2014, the association of american universities and association of public land grant universities wrote a letter to faa stating, "there is no timely workable mechanism for both public and private universities to secure faa approval to conduct important research utilizing small unplanned aerial systems or suas technology." has faa considered issuing a rule to make it easier for universities to research suass such as allowing universities to research suass on their own property below 400 feet? >> well we believe that our small rule will address the needs of the universities. we also believe that -- i've had

discussions with several universities about this -- that they can move forward using our section 333 process to conduct their training research, et cetera. i've had discussions with several universities about the possibility of doing that and i think they're interested. >> okay. so in the meantime there is some opportunities there but also you expect that the rule would give them the ability to do some of the research that they are looking to do. mr. williams roughly how much interest is there in the faa test sites in terms of calls meetings and website visits? how many organizations have actually used the test sites? >> i don't have that data with me, sir. we can certainly get back to you. >> if you can maybe get that back to you or to the committee that would be terrific. how would you organize the faa uas test sites to best accommodate industry's r & d needs? >> sir, we want to get this word

out. i think it's early days for the test sites so we've got to make the i think more accessible -- we've discussed earlier the need for greater transparency, getting the costs down, et cetera. i think there's also a need to focus the research on the specific areas that we've been all agreeing needs to be advanced. so i think those are the primary elements that we'd be looking at. >> do you have anything to add? >> i would take the six faa test sites that exist in remote locations and expand that to test sites that might be on your company's private property that have strict regulations around what you're allowed to do geo fenced. the drones with the geo fence will not cross that barrier. they have that level of intelligence today. so sub-400 feet, don't cross the geo fence remain line of sight. now that test site can be on your own company's property.

>> are they -- have you heard if they're open to that looking into that? >> are you guys open to that? >> mr. williams? >> i believe that we have the experimental process to accommodate that type of operation. we have experimental airworthy airworthiness certificates that we issue for development research, et cetera that have been taken advantage of by other companies to do exactly that. so that process does remain available to anyone who chooses to use it. >> and i hear that a lot. and that's the same -- is that the same air worthiness certificate that there's been 14 total granted so far in the country of all the people that want to fly drones? >> no. we've issued quite a few more experimental certificates. >> the section 333. that's what's required for a private drone operator to be able to operate -- >> that's for commercial use. i mean the experimental process is for the developmental use. >> okay. so i guess i'm talking about

more for private sector. >> let me ask you this real quick because i am running out of time. on that, how do you see other country's openness to doing this outside the united states? have you seen similar openness here as in other countries or do you see thank you chairman for your indulgence. i yield back. >> thank you. the gentlemen from alabama, mr. palmer is recognized for questions. >> thank you mr. chairman. i was called away to another meetings. so i missed a lot of this. and thank you for the

demonstration. i might ask for one of those for christmas myself. a couple of things. i don't know if this has been asked. but has anyone done an estimate of the economic impact and the context of what it would be to the u.s. economy if we had the design and engineering done here in the united states if we do the construction here? manufacture, i should say. the manufacture -- well if you are doing uas as -- did you say as large as a 727? is that what you said? so you would be doing design engineering and construction here. has anyone looked at what the economic impact of that might be? >> yes, sir. the numbers that my organization have put together in 2013 suggest that after we have access to the national air space system, the economic impact amounts to about $82 billion and 100,000 plus jobs.

those numbers with your were put together in 2013. we're going to update those numbers esm we think they probably understate the opportunity. >> now that is just the design engineering construction. that is my question. >> and ancillary. >> that would be the commercial use? >> no. that does not include commercial use. profitability for other businesses >> okay. all right. are we losing any technological advantage by the delays and approval for testing? in other words if this is -- if this goes off shore? >> for the design and test, in those numbers i think yes, sir. i think that is an important distinction. the markets that we -- the end user community such as the insurance industry the agricultural community etc. they will still want to utilize the technology. the question is whether or not they will be using american

built technology. >> if i may add to that. during the course of our study we heard presentations from many in the industry. many of them told us that they could not conduct the kind of research and development that they needed to do in the u.s. and that they were taking their operations off shore. and if i may briefly add in november i participated in a meeting sponsored by the national air and space committee in france. and one of the key things that came out of that conference was the fact that the dgac the french faa, in 2012 issued a risk-based set of regulations covering the very small uas's i think two and a half kilos. they put those in place, as of the time of the conference which was in november there were over a thousand certified operators,

more 1600 vehicles in french air space alone. and there were multiple manufacturers and others participating in this. it was really quite interesting to see the industry taking off there. >> and those numbers for france france is approximately 90% the populous of texas is that right? >> yep. >> so we could probably get some pretty amazing economic benefit for the whoem country. >> boing back to the size of these things 727. you do foresee a company like federal express or the big commercial materials carriers utilizing these for high capacity transports? >> there is interest in the part of federal express explicitly in several other, particularly cargo operators. this is going to be a long time in the future. these capabilities will first come through in the military. be demonstrated. and the risk issues will be demonstrated. but 50 years from now 60 years

from now there will be uavs. we can do it technically today. the issue is to work out all the operational details. >> and one of those i would assume would be ensuring that the guidance systems cannot be hacked. >> exactly. that is the comment dr. lombert talked about. one of the key research areas are the cybersecurity issues particularly associated with the command up link. >> my last question has do with utilize utilizing for high altitude sub space, maybe even launch and return capabilities. high altitude subspace for, say, weather evaluations and things like that. is that something that is on the drawing board? >> one of the biggest potential markets is actually the use of these vehicles for high altitude relay for basically internet on

the surface. so you can have long persistence vehicles at high altitude that can act effectively as satellites and be doing broadband distribution to the ground. >> and for instance a unmanned flight to the international space station, would you -- do you foresee having the capability for launch and return for a mission like that. >> we do it today. we have unmanned vehicles that are flying cargo missions to the space station today. >> all right. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. palmer. and let me thank our witnesses today. this has bhn a particularly interesting and informative panel. we wish mr. williams however the faa might have told us when they have the rules ready but we

appreciate your contribution. and this has really been helpful to menacembers of the science community and we look to hearing from you in the future about both private and commercial sectors. thank you all again for being here.

>> last night the president delivered a state of the union. it was interesting to hear about accurate acting homeland leader talk about budgeting. and keeping us safe and free. you have concerns as i about what we heard last night. it was interesting to hear some of the commentary after the president's speech. we talk about securing the homeland and what it means for the american public. andrea mitchell, msnbc last night said i think on foreign policy -- meaning president obama's. his success on projection of terrorism and against isis in particular is not close to reality. the president of the united states not close to reality. mr. president i've just come back from a trip to the middle east, been to saudi arabia, qatar, israeli.

and i concur with andrea mitchell that on the specifics of the president's assessment of success against terrorism and against isis, this president is not close to reality. so republicans are going to continue to bring forth the issues to the american people of what reality is like in the world in spite of the way the president may address it. because of the specific failures of this president and his foreign policy. you know it is interesting mr. president, last night in the state of the union the president started by saying that the state of the union is strong. and mr. president, the state of our union is strong. but president obama mistakenly took credit for that strength. he implied that it was because of his policies, because of his actions. on that point this president could not have gotten it more wrong.