Small quadrotor UAS, like this one from Yuneec Ltd., were in abundance at the show. AUVSI photo.

By Brett Davis



Monitoring miles of railroad tracks. Filming news segments in remote corners of the world for the BBC. Mapping potential oil drilling sites.



These are a few of the uses for unmanned aircraft that were highlighted at The Commercial UAV Show, held 21-22 Oct. in London.



Although regulations around the world were seen to still be lagging, the appetite for commercial use is growing, and growing in fields that previously hadn’t seen a use for an eye in the sky.



David Edem, head of business technology for Tullow Oil, described his company’s use of fixed-wing aircraft in Kenya and Uganda for scouting oil drilling sites, studying their environmental impact and helping with environmental restoration.



The company began working with UAS about three years ago, Edem said. The small system helps because the company operates in some very remote areas without infrastructure. Tullow Oil was successful because it brought in local government and tribal officials as well as the residents of the areas where it worked. 



“They are really quite engaged,” he said of local residents. We have people actually competing to catch the UAVs when they land.”



Such ties came in handy when Kenya made unmanned aircraft use illegal in the country after a news outlet flew a UAS in a populated area. Edem said because of its existing relationships, Tullow Oil has been exempted from the ban.



The BBC World Service has also been using small, unmanned aircraft to produce video stories not obtainable any other way, including one that featured an overhead view of ancient Stonehenge.



The crew responsible for that wasn’t interested in UAS in particular, but rather in the stories they could help tell.



“We were filmmakers first … and kind of came into it [UAS] on the secondary level,” said Thomas Hannen, one of the World Service crew who has pioneered the BBC’s work with UAS.



The teams always work with local aviation authorities wherever they go, he noted.



Peter Ellis, principal engineer with Network Rail’s Technical Services department, said the British rail company has 20,000 miles of track to oversee, including 30,000 bridges, tunnels and embankments. Inspecting some of that infrastructure is dangerous work.



“The industry is now looking at better ways and more cost-effective means of getting the information we need,” Ellis said.



Over the past year, Network Rail has been using UAS to monitor its holdings, including mapping a landslide that closed a section of track for months. The demonstrations have been successful, he said, and the company is now planning to award contracts for more permanent UAS work.



The Pace of Regulation 



Even as companies like these are finding new uses for UAS, regulators who spoke on a panel said full airspace integration remains years away, even though small systems will be flying relatively soon.



Gerry Corbett, UAS program lead for the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority’s Safety and Airspace Regulation Group, said he expects sense-and-avoid systems to be in place on most UAS by 2018, with full, seamless integration coming around 2028. Jim Williams, manager of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s UAS Integration Office, said that timeline sounded about right.



Corbett said he’s looking into a class of small vehicles, basically hobbyist aircraft, that could essentially be unregulated. He and Williams said both their agencies are launching education campaigns to help newfound UAS enthusiasts understand where they can and can’t fly.



However, Williams also noted that the FAA’s long-awaited small UAS rule, expected by the end of the year, will be out “late this year, [or] early next year.”