er the last vote so we'll go now to mr. guan who i think has the most fun job of the whole day and you're recognized for your testimony. thank you very much chairman smith and ranking member bonamici. thank you committee here for having me. it's an honor to come speak to you about something that i'm very passionate about. i think what i'd like to do is just talk to you about, kind of the sailtale mate that we're in today between -- no one going to disagree to the benefits that uas can provide to the economic, the efficiencies in business, the job creation, the revenue that can come into our country and then at the same time nobody is going to argue with the fact that we must be extremely thoughtful, considerate and careful in integrating these systems into the national airspace 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 like to just talk a little bit 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? so we have the faa test sites which are great. but at the same time it's a little bit of testing in a bubble. to ask research and development companies to rapidly iterate their technology and have to every couple of months figure out a time where they can get into a test site. travel with their entire engineering team. did they accidental leave the spectrum analyzer at the lab now someone has to fly home to get 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 anbsolutely reaping the awards and benefits of this technology. additionally, we must -- testing

it in test sites is not necessarily going to give us the necessary data and logged flight hours to figure out what the hurdles are. what the road blkblocks are to safety intereggrating these systems. in the meantime and you'll here here this is something that i want to talk about today when it comes to very small systems. which weighs just over a pound. it's actually an incredibly advanced edd uav or drone. so what i think question start somewhere and instead of having to regulate and integrate 20, 30, and 40 pound systems or 50 pound systems into our national airspace 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.

there's somewhat of a precedence around sub-2 kilogram systems. they have the least chance of causing any harm. and so -- all right. we all saw a drone fly. fantastic. incredible. >> i was hoping you'd fightly it over the whole room -- >> well, you said no haircuts. >> i said no haircuts earlier but you could have done. >> we could have arranged that so -- so the point that i want to make today is that 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 sub2 kill oegramogram systems i think has something that could potentially brinldge our gap while we're figuring out 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 that can have geofences set up and that can return to their location and land themself. they log every perameter of the flight in real time. these small systems could be saving wild fire fire fighter's lives or people saving the lives of people flying over power lines to take pictures of power lines. they could be used for a myriad of situations where they can save human lives. that's all i wanted to say today

is that maybe hewe can start somewhere, use that for data collection and also satisfy some of that economic benefit that all of those other countries that are experiencing right now. >> thank you. good suggestions. dr. hensman. >> thanks for the opportunity to be here today. it's sort of hard to follow the demo but as you can see uavs are one of the most exciting areas in particularly aeronautics today. the same technologies that we used to enable these cell phones, the miniaturization of processing coupled with algorithms coupled with high power, you can see the stability of high performance in very small packages. today back in my office at mit i have two teams of students

building new uav concepts so it's a real exciting area. the thing to remember about uav interegg iegsation intereggation that there's a huge spectrum of sizes ranging from a few grams up to a thousands of pounds. 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 need to get that going and get that enables. that's what you've heard from some of this. there's other categories. you have high altitude uavs. sort of the ones the military would want to operate. we sort of know how to do that. we have developed operating rules. they are normally operating above where most of the manned airplanes are. the two more challenging areas

are small auv as that are being operated beyond the site of the operator so you don't have the visual feedback. you're going to rely more on algorithms and rely more on the technology. and the toughest area is actually uavs who's mission require that they operate in the same air space that manned airplanes need to operate. frankly, we don't have good -- what we call concepts of operations for either the small uas beyond line of site or the larger uas operating in that air space. there's been so much focus on the small uas that we really haven't done the research to enable the concepts of the operation. in unique consents of operation in order to guide the research to develop the standards, to work out the rules, to figure out the human factors. for example if we have uavs operating as ifr aircraft system

today, how does the aircraft 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 uav airplane. we normally say give it to the manned airplane but what if the uav is on a live saving mission so there's a lot of critical questions here. most of my comments were for my prepared remarks but i think the take away stlais that we really need to develop and we're really behind the 8 ball. we really haven't been working the harder problems of the fully integrated uas in some of the issues beyond line of site. i would note that i am

encouraged by for example, the work that nasa has started on utm concept beyond line of site so they are starting to attack some of those problems so thank you for the opportunity. >> mr. henson, thank you for those comments. the committee is going to stand in recess till after these votes. when we return, we will go immediately to our questions. sorry for the inconvenience. i hope we're back within 30 minutes if you all to take a break until then. >> thanks. the science committee will re reconvene. we will now begin our questioning and i will recognize myself for that purpose. dr. waggoner mr. williams let me direct my questions to all of you. what is a realistic deadline for integrating the drones into the national air space system. i mentioned in my opening statement that it appears that the deadline has slipped but

what can drone users and even the american people the wider audience, what is realistic deadline for that integration? dr. waggoner and then mr. williams. >> so chairman i would answer that right now we do have a level of integration. so for public aircraft, they are flying everyday. 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 rtch 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 would i expect the faa to propose some rules? >> well, the faa is working closely with our administration

partners if the rule making process. we're doing everything we can to get that small unmanned uncraft role out but our main focus is to get it right. >> when do you might think you might get that out? >> i can't at this point give you a firm deadline. >> do you have a goal in mind? you've got 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 adds quickly as as quickly as we can as long as we get it right. would it likely to be this year or next year? >> i can't speculate. our 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 and we're working our way through

that. >> okay. i am going to press you one more time. you're slipping off my question here. how long does a regulatory process normally take in a situation like this? >> well, you've got to understand this is a very complex rule making. >> never mind. i can tell i am not going to get the answer i was hoping for but we'll take your word for expediting the process as much as we can. dr. lauber, you mentioned this in your testimony a while ago but what technologies need to be priorityized before the nas integration? what are the -- >> well i refer to what we believe is probability 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 place for full integration of a wide range of these vehicles into the

aviation system. that would be the highest priority. >> okay. thank you. mr. wynn and mr. gwen we have the government on one side as part of the process an we have the private sector as part of the process as well. what are the contributions of the private sector to the integration? >> my brief mr. chairman is that the industry is going to bring the lions share of the technology solutions as it should. companies like 3d robotics at the end of the day, they are constructing the devices, they are developing the software not just directly in the industry the micro processor speeds are getting faster et cetera,et. so this was really the spirit of my testimony was industry should really be doing the lion share of this. we should be proving the concepts to the satisfaction of the regulators in this r and d

process. >> thank you. anything to add? >> not to give a specific example, i 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 3d robotics is doing is if i fly my drone today outside, you can log into drone share.com and watch my entire flight automatically so 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 automagically from your smart device into the cloud to drone share.com and we're able to now collect 10s if not hundreds of thousands of hours of data on what are the fringe cases right? that's what we have to figure out? what are the fringe cases when you actually start integrating hundreds of thousands of these systems into air space. >> you mentioned the drone we saw a while ago in the drone was

a fairly sophisticated device. what did it cost? what is it's range or use? that's more of a hobby drone. it's called the b bop. it's incredibly advanced in that it has a full high definition camera. you can either fly it with a smart device or with a long change controller. it's got optical flow sensors to look at the ground and maintain positioning and alcellrometers and a full computer that's a flight system onboard and it's $499. >> what's the range. >> depending on if you're using a smart phone you're restricted to wifi range but if you use the controller you can get up to a kilometer of range with something like that. >> okay. thank you. you mentioned tour eded during your testimony what your students are working on in the classroom. i just wondered if we can expect any kind of breakthroughs -- you

might give some examples of what they are working on as well. you've obviously seen it from a hands on approach. >> i will give you a couple of quick examples. one vehicle that our students protocops is a small uav that can do a one hour surveillance system that is launched out of a military airplane. gets shot out at 300 gs. this is a concept that nobody in the airforce thought would work. the students actually demonstrated it. it's now a development program where the vehicles they developed are being launched out of f 16s right now at ed edwards, amazing. >> i hope that's not classified information. >> that's intriguing. well, thank you all for your answers. now i will recognize the gentlemen woman mr. oregon for her questions. >> thank you very much mr. chairman.

thank you to our very accomplished panel of witnesses. as you heard in the opening remarks, oregon does have three test sites through the pan pacific uas test range led by the university of alaska fairbanks fairbanks. we've talked a lot about the benefits of the technology. one of the concerns that i've heard from constituteents that i've heard in the industry that there's still problem of advancing the testing of their products especially true for small companies that don't have a small revenue stream and the test ranges and i think mr. gwin said this about providing a space where the development can take place may be prohibitively expensive for small companies and there may be other logistical barriers. can you expand on how the faa could work to best address these concerns and then i want to allow time for a couple of other questions. >> sure so really quickly, right now, there's not really a set understanding of how you even

schedule a time to go to the range. there's no way to log into a system and say when is the next available day. it's not a matter of them being too busy. quite frankly there's not a whole lot of companies using these test ranges. it's more a matter of what is the process? there's a lot of bureaucracy surrounding getting even the approval to go to a test range and test fly for a few days so you don't know if that's going to be 30 days or two months. >> then i'm going to ask mr. women yam williams about that too. first i want to ask mr. wynn the question. thanks for your association work and what you've been doing. i want to echo the comments made by the chairman and some of the my colleagues about the concerns about the rulemaking. maybe made a comment about the notice of proposed rule making is expected. we're encouraged about hearing that news. i actually sent a letter to secretary fox concerned about the timeline. of course we want this to be

done right. we don't want to jeopardize safety. we're concerned not only about work force development and those challenges of recruiting people into it this industry if we don't have thatfor certainty but new noticed particular challenges because of the lack of certainty of atracktracting capital to the industry. >> absolutely, ma'am. thank you for the question. if i'm investing money in a project like this, i want to know what the go market strategy is, i want to know 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 burrier. so there's i think -- the fact that there's money flowing in. there's tremendous product being developed. this is a great investment opportunity and a great opportunity and a job creator

which is something we need to be paying attention to. so while we want to get this right, and 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 regulation some of the countries abroad have demonstrated this. >> thank you. i know he talked about that. you heard him talk about some of the possible ways of moving forward. of course it's 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 where their safety can be demonstrates and performing additional tests to home can that outline potential changes and can you taub about potential changes that could allow for more flexibility especially for

the small developers and 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's the same regulations that are applied. we're in the process to make it more friendly for unmanned operators to get through the process. opt on the test side front, we have set up a program to enable them with all the test sites to have the opportunity to issue experimental certifies on behalf of the f aaa thereby stream lining the process so we think that's a significant benefit that the test sites can offer to the industry. we're constantly looking at ways

to stream line our processes and work to enable these new companies to test their aircraft in a safe by the rules way. >> thank you. i see my time has expired. i will submit my section 333 exemption question for the record. thank you mr. chairman. >> thanks. the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. lucas is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. i would direct my question to dr. waggoner and mr. gwnyy and mr. hanson. in recent years, agriculture has been one of the bright spots in our economy. can you talk about the benefits that these might provide to growers and consumers. >> i have a little. what we saw high school students this year who had the challenge of developing an unmanned aircraft to surveille a large

farm of corn. 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 pesticide 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. that was -- that's part of what is behind our more midterm work on this uas traffic management. so allowing a farmer or a commercial operation to go into a farm and do that kind of surveillance operations at low altitudes very safely and in a way that would be very cost

affective. ad adpplications are already ongoing in other parts the world. in japan for example where you have very small rice patties we're seeing applications there. it's considered one of the number one applications. there's significant interest on the part of agricultural departments to use these vehicles. if they are they are frustrate bid the rule like everybody else. it's difficult for them to get exemptions to go do experiments. its one of the big opportunity spaces. >> if i can maybe provide maybe a specific example of a way that even 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 hearing about these drones. what can we do with them. everybody talks about the high

tech expect imagery and water damage and pesticide. if you take it to a simple level. most of these farmers have never done a high yard resolution pictures of their vineyards which we did and allowed him to see a high resolution image of the crop and for the generations of the vineyard and he looked over and said wow see how this is actually more darker green than this whole area because you can't see that when you're walking the rows the yin yardvineyard. you can't see the minute differences when you're up close. that means we need to harvest these grapes two to three weeks earlier than the rest of the vineyard.

he then walked us out took some grapes from that area and grapes from the rest of the vineyard and you could clearly taste the difference between the two sets. he said before today he never knew that existed and that happened in two hours. >> congressman thank you for the question. the numbers that auv si put together in 2013, the 802$82 billion in the first ten years, we think as high as 80% could be agriculture. >> absolutely. >> dr. williams, i come from a state where the chamber of commerce likes for us to use the phrase significant weather events occur on a common place in a common way. my home state is making a lot of investments in weather related research. one of the things that i understand is that challenge is this requirement to obtain a certificate of authorization coa or a section 33 exemptions 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 approve the processing of the approvals. most of the -- understand 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 so we have to give you either a waiver or authorization to do that. that's the coa process. that process is undergoing a revamp inside of the faa. we're in the process of building a new software to interact with the folks using it. we think that's going to be a major step forward. we have achieved tremendous amount of progress with our public partners in accelerating their approvals. we've reduced the amount of overhead for many of the frequent users like nasa. we have a much easier way forward.

on the 333 side we're also working hard to extreme line that process. we put together a team that's in the process of developing a streamlined and efficient process to move it quickly. it was never intended as an approval mechanism. it was intended to deal with exceptions and special cases. we're trying to make that up as we go to figure out how to accelerate it but it's a regulatory process. there are rules that have to be met as we go through it so we are trying to fine the right balance. >> thank you mr. chairman. the gentlemen from illinois is recognized for his questions. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for holding this hearing. something we're all very interested in. it's critical that we get a handle on this. we don't want to -- on the one hand, we want innovation to move forward in all the opportunities brought out for business

purposes and other purposes aus but we know there's a lot of issues also that need to be dealt with. so i wanted to ask mr. williams and anyone else can jump in if they have anything else to have. i want to talk about the concern of the number being reported. my district includes midway airport so it's especially important to me also louis university airport in my district. so given the rapid increase in number of small uas in use for hobby and commercial purposes. what's being done to understand the risk of uas collision and what's being done to track near misses? >> so we're in the process of building a tracking system modeled on the way we track the laser 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 are flying in and the rules about where they can and can't fly. so we have -- we're in partnership with the small uav coalition. the unmanned aircraft vehicles international uvasi and academy of model aeronautics we have a campaign going on called know before you fly so we're working to find any means we can to educate the public about before they fly. primarily the faa is interested in compliance with our rules. we believe the best way to achieve that compliance is through education so we're working hard to make that happen. on the research side -- i'm sorry. you had another question about the research. >> what's being done to understand the research of uas collision. >> right. so we actually have started this year research initiative to look

into what the potential is for -- what we're really assessing the risk of an unmanned aircraft to an aircraft. that proj engt is getect off the ground and we're accelerating and thanks to the additional funding congress provided we should be able to accelerate it more rapidly than we were able to. >> anything else that witnesses should be done that are not being done. >> we just want to emphasize that we think the faa with their help with this campaign to educate. i think in some instances it is an education challenge. obviously commercial operations 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 heir sport. within line of site. stay away from crowds. it's basic common sense.

we think in many instances, it's just a question of education. we've had tremendous response from the aviation community on it this. we've got new partners in nbaa, eaa, et cetera many of the os are stepping in and helping us get that word out. >> thank you. one other thing i wanted to onto before my time runs out about test sites. the faa established six test sites to enable research. they are operating an on agreement to restrict the faa's role on directing research. i wanted to ask mr. williams what steps is the f a, a taking to address the nation's top research priorities and are there any barriers that need to be addressed? >> back in the fall we released two of the test sites and listed over 100 research areas that we believe could benefit from having them look into. i think the -- there's been a

lot of misunderstanding about what they can and can't do at our behest. our only rule is through the procurement rules, we have to if we're going to direct one of our contractors and the 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. we can also agree to work together through these agreements. but the bottom line is to all of it, all we have to do is document it in these agreements on any research project that is of interest to those test sites. i believe we've communicated that and they understand the situation pretty well at this point. >> thank you. i have other questions we will submit for the record. >> thank you commissioner. on behalf of the new committee, without objection i'd like to put a letter from a michael

chronmiller in the record. the without any objection that is so entered. the gentleman from california is now recognized. >> thank you very much. let me see if i am getting all of this straight now. the faa actually will approve mr. gynn's drones, their design and their capabilities and aproof thema approve them to actually go in the air before we are permitted to fly them. who can answer that? >> sir two processes run in parallel so that when the approval to fly the aircraft without an unworthiness certificate that's done through the certification 333 exemption process. >> that's done on the approval of the design and capabilities is that right. >> yes and the operations and they come in and say we want to operate it in this particular area and our air traffic organization assesses whether or not it's safe for them to

operate. so they are looking for you know conflicts with manned aircraft. >> so this is both the faa in both cases, one is the safety of the equipment itself and then the safety of the actual instance that they want to use this specific situation. and we're -- are we having any trouble, mr. gynn with the actual approval of the simystem, their crafts that you can bring forth for approval. am i understanding -- do you think that should be stream lined if somebody wants to use a system for looking at photo mowsfoet system mosaics where the faa determines is this aircraft -- >> once you've gotten that -- >> first you have to get that. so far of all the companies .

for the section 333. so far 14 have been granted. >> is that correct 14? >> out of how many requests. out of everyone in the country of everyone that wants to fly their drones. >> 14? >> right but the process is being improved and they are going to be coming out a little more frequently. >> so it's difficult first to get it. 14 out of however many thousand and 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 capabilities are far surpasses the ability of making decisions about standards and rule making -- general rule making. that's what we have to catch-up with. this isn't the first time that that has happened in history. 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 actual evidence but in my estimation having a two or three pound drone flying over a power line taking photos if it were to fail in any way, shape form it doesn't have to worky about auto rotating down the ground when they are already flying outside the chart. all it does is bounce out of the power line fall to the ground. you take another one out of the truck and you keep expecting. my guess that would be much more safe and it would allow us to safe lines today. >> it actually depends on the size of the drone. for small drones, the risk is much lower for people on the air and ground. >> has anybody ever been hurt from a crashing ground on the drone.

>> there's been ouch you hit me in the head with that drone. >> all right. let me ask you about how the faa is planning to do this with testing area test sites that have been eftstablished that help you try to determine whether or not these pieces of equipment should be approved. can somebody tell me what they do at those test sites? >> well, the primary intention for the test sites is to provide an opportunity for manufactures to do their development tests and evaluations in support of moving forward toward approval. >> that's what the -- that's what we had spent $11 million on that providing that to you last year and now that budget has been increased. is that right. >> no, sir. there hasn't been any appropriation from the faa to support those test sites. we funded it out of our existing appropriation. is it possible if when we have these company that's are seeking profit which is a good thing and

thank god they have technology which is a good opportunity, 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 tests or be able to certify certain people to conduct these 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 sponsor them and they are getting compensation from the individual -- the companies who come to them for testing or the government and in a couple of cases there have been government testing there. the faa doesn't fund the test site operating cost. >> we've only had 14 of these things approved so i can't imagine we've had much revenue so far but i would hope -- >> so there's a small number of

companies covering that cost which is why it is prohibitively expensive to go to the sites to test versus going to canada or mexico, our neighbors. >> just to note, my family just happened to be coming in at the time that drone was flying around and i guess they -- my son got an interesting opinion of what his father does for a living. >> it kind of shows you how this vehicle actually stimulate the interest of this sort of next generation. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman and to the ranking member for having this hearing today and 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 the way farmers do business and increasing yields and decreasing the use of pesticides. this is all a very good thing. coming from the state of connecticut where we've been long time leaders in aviation and arrow space we're very

excited about these opportunities. but we also live in an incredibly congested airspace. some of us which includes us that sit on the transportation and infrastructure committee are having the same issue. i'd like to turn to you and get us to understand on the r and d side what are the risks that we should be looking at? what should be the research priorities to avoid those issues which are a little different than the agricultural setting. those are what do you deal with laguardia to logan issues particularly as we follow-up on the exciting possibilities of improving our infrastructure, the grid looking at lines. these are very important opportunities but again they do pose risks particularly in the congested air space. anyone who wants to jump in and help guide us through research capabilities what are the risks we face and on the r and d side what should be we prioritizing to address the risks outside of

regulation actually understanding? >> go ahead. so from a risk standpoint if you look at uav operations, two risk areas ground impact hazard people being hurt by drones coming out of the sky or mid air collision risks. the ground impact hazard you can do the analysis -- it really scales significantly by vehicle mass. studies have been done and you can look at the risk versus the reliability required to compared those with manned airplanes in said standards there. from the air born collision risk standpoint it also scales with size so for very small uavs we design airplanes so they can take bird strikes so an interesting question is what is the threshold mass for a uav for which the existing regulatory guidance on bird striking criteria would allow you to work

there. above that, you need some method to separate airplanes. the easiest thing is to do segregation. that's where we're working now. the hard is to come up as i said before concepts of operation that would allow you to operate in the same air space and be coordinated in some way. that's where we really need to coordinate is the concepts. >> i would agree with that. that's why countries have less if it's less than a ekg, it's less than capable of handling a bird strike. the other thing we need to do is going to test sites with a team of ph.d. flying a perfectly assembled drone we're not finding out what the frirvegnge cases are when you integrate thousands of systems far beyond what would be considered a bird strike is extremely scary.

so to me starting with those lightweight systems so that we can collect all of that data and start figuring out. okay. here are the fringe cases here are the failure points and risk risks. how do we infiltrate those for ooir aircraft. >> i said that the highest priority most difficult research studies that i identified had to do with issues, the question of verification valuation and version and how you go about setting appropriate standards of risk that apply to these light, srksusas systems in a world that was meant to deal with manned large aircraft systems of mass. it's a very different world and commands very high priority in our view. >> as dr. hanson mentioned, the harder problem of inoperability, particularly with the larger aircraft so that's something that nasa has taken on.

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 pilots so that they can make informed decisions and we're doing research in both of those areas in up isority of the oritysupport of the faas standard development. >> thank you that's all helpful. those whoa have thoughts honw to integrate as we're addressing next gen as part of the integration i would appreciate that. >> thank you very much. >> the gentleman from california, mr. knight is recognized for his questions. >> flaunkthank you mr. chairman. thank you for having this team panel. i have just a couple statements maybe, a quick question. you know the uas systems have helped quite a bit.

i know that these aren't something new. they've been around for 50 or 60 years. 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're working on right now with the united states airforce and the navy. we put that on a uas system because of 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 work and hopefully the plane didn't crash and you might get a test pilot to do that. my questions are more in line with privacy and how congress is going to move forward in the next 20 years especially when it coxs to comes to law enforce. law enforcement has been part of the uas question.

if you have a helicopter that's chasing a bad guy and he floors that area, we've decided that's okay. but if you use a uas we've decided that that's probably not okay. so the discussion is going to go and i can already see you probably won't answer this is how do we go about that? 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's probably the easiest to solve because you simply say these are the rules of whether or not you can engage with a uas and whether or not that evidence can be admitted into a hearing because obviously the point of law enforcement is to stop crime and the only way to stop crime is to be able to convict and the only way to convict is to be able to use admissible evidence. i think that one is simple. 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. there's a lot of people who have those concerns. i would harken 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. now obviously every single employee has a camera in their pocket. people will realize with this technology that there's not tens of thousands of perfect krim namcriminal criminals waiting on this technology to supply on each other. it is just the question of these that can be set up silently and noticeable in somebody's house versus a loud, blinkly hit up drone flying out the window. i think it's 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, you know, 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 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 that a small uas can do r. so that's i think will be a question for congress is 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. >> one of the initiatives we

took back in 2012 was to set up a special process called for in our re-authorization of 2012 for law enforcement. we've been working directly individual law enforcement agencies around the country. there's some that have had spectacular success with their aircraft. it is a priority from 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 safety. >> thank you. >> congressman, i just wanted to point out that avsi in an earlier effort we did work with the international association of chiefs of police to develop guidelines. i'd be happy to submit those for the record. >> thank you. b thank you mr. chairman. the gentleman from washington, i recognize his question.

thank you very much mr. chairman. i thank you for being here to enlighten us about this exciting and important subject in being in agriculture. i do share the vision of the future of how we can produce crops more affectively and efficiently. a couple of questions i think dr. laubon i onlaubon, i might start with you that deal with questions of the unmanned industry both public and privately and also the importance of safety of integrating these unmanned systems into the national air space so speaking about that and realizing the speed that some of these innovations are happening. it seems that 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 ads b transponders. those kinds of things. if you could talk a little bit about that it would bebe appreciative. >> i think you talked about some of the things we brought up in our report in achieving success of integrating these systems into our air space and realizing the potential benefits of these systems, we have to do it in such a way that safety is not 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. the doctor has already outlined a couple of the key risks that have to be understood, collision with other aircraft and 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. you know one of the top four and most difficult research projects that we identified was what we called continuous operation without human intervention. in order for uass to do this basically, a uas must have the capability of doing what any manned aviation sifltystem 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 based on unexpected or unanticipated

situations you have to build that into the technology in order to maintain the level of risks that we have now so these are fundamental importances as far as our study is concerned. >> thank you. just another question. i can't let the faa off the hook totally. in a recent interview on business insider magazine the zv ceo of am azon jeff bezos was asked a question when they might be possibly delivering packages delivering these systems and maybe you've read that article but it highlights the perhaps, some of the -- i could term overregulation and the r and d in the u.s. he answered a long answer that i have time for but the technology is not going to be the long poll. the long poll will be regulation. so as was already talked about with a dozen or 14 approvals

already for commercial uass, could you explain why there may be hundreds or even thousands in other countries that have been approved and here we lag behind so to speak. >> ul >> well, i'm not sure i agree that we have lagged 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. it's a different regulatory and legal framework here 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 are doing and benefit from their experience. so we're taking those things into consideration. there are multiple paths for commercial operations. we have two operators approved up in alaska who are using

certified aircraft that have gone through the manned certification process, adapted for use of foreign and unmanned aircraft obviously. all of the rules for unmanned aircraft didn't apply to them but there are commercial operations available that way a ain addition to this new way we found through the section 333 process that's designed to bridge us through the regulatory environment we're trying to achieve with the small unmanned aircraft rule. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you mr. newhouse. the gentleman from texas is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. i don't know where to start. are the permits issued -- there's -- 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 serratedcertifyied heiraircraft that are operating in alaska and several hundred public operators in other words government operators that we've approved. >> are they based on size mr. williams. category one 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 of our approvals. the reason there are different levels of approval is there's different levels of risk. so for these very small ones that we're now approving through an exemption process because of their size weight and operating environments, we're approving, basically waving most the manned uncraft rules so that they don't have to comply. >> what is a small weight? >> under 55 pounds was legislate

legislated in our 2012 re-authorization was defined as small in legislation. >> are there ones above 55 pounds that get approved. >> yes therks goy go up to the aircraft that both nasa and dod fly is approximately the same size as a 727. >> are they able to cross into mexico and canada without violating airspace issues? >> i believe the dod flies around the world with their unmanned aircraft and they are following the rules for manned aircraft the same ways they do for -- >> what about private companies? if they cross from in the united states and canada? >> we currently don't have any approved private company that's are operating across the borders. and there is a committee or what they call a panel has been formed to develop the

international standards and recommended practices for unmanned iraircraft crossing between countries. that framework is being developed. >> so when a company gets approval it has permitted a license, what do you call it? >> well, we call the pilots getting certificate d. >> if the aircraft is approved through a certificate then it's indefinite. the processes we're doing through the exemptions, those are good for two years. >> okay. so if one of these units falls out of the sky and hits the car on the ground, liability insurance. do people market insurance for

theys thing these things? >> yes, there's insurance available through multiple insurance companies. >> the cameras. i know you talked about the high definition camera. are they able to transmit video back on the ground? is that pretty much standard? >> yes. absolutely. even what he was flying today transmits back to your tablet.