Drones must broadcast owner info over RFID or GSM, French committee rules

Transponders, mandatory training, and registration demanded under planned law.

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[EvolvedMonkey]

Well this seems fairly reasonable. The transponder aspect might also help with managing air congestion, although reliability might be an issue.

 

[erendorn]

So this will certainly help with negligence issues (people not knowing they are flying somewhere they should't).
I am not sure how it is supposed to prevent people willfully flying over sensitive sites or carrying a "petite grenade"...

The other question is, will it be how to implement such a constraint cheaply and witthout much weight (can be significant for a 1kg drone) for existing drones, especially if it stays France specific.

 

[gbjbaanb]

More a case of how to detect unregulated done use? I mean the guys flying drugs on drones over prisons won't be broadcasting their identity anyone soon.

I suppose drones won't be sold without the feature and I assume buyers will have to register at point of sale, but what about drones bought via mail from countries outside France (ie China) that won't have this feature to keep costs down to the minimum?

 

[mmiller7]

erendorn[/url]":1jto9c6h]So this will certainly help with negligence issues (people not knowing they are flying somewhere they should't).
I am not sure how it is supposed to prevent people willfully flying over sensitive sites or carrying a "petite grenade"...

The other question is, will it be how to implement such a constraint cheaply and witthout much weight (can be significant for a 1kg drone) for existing drones, especially if it stays France specific.

Indeed...and it would have to be a fairly self-contained add-on because different model drones run on different batteries and not all of them have GPS capability.

I had the bright idea of putting an amateur radio APRS beacon (TinyTracker + GPS-dongle + UV5R + dipole wire antenna) on my A.R.Drone2.0 to see how far away I could get a signal by going up 50-70 feet in the air...except the handheld radios I have are too heavy to maintain a controlled flight even a few feet off the ground.

Then again, I suppose if they make it heavy enough it stops becoming a problem when they can no longer fly.

 

[please explain]

Even my dog doesn't have requirements like this. Some day we will look back on all of this as drone paranoia.

 

[oTTkZK]

please explain[/url]":4muwu539]Even my dog doesn't have requirements like this. Some day we will look back on all of this as drone paranoia.

Probably your dog should have! I thought the drone panic was paranoia too - what difference is there between drones and radio controlled model aircraft which have been around for yonks? Just because the press gives them the same name as scary military killing machines does not make them scary.

Then: I saw a dim-witted Jack Whitehall like bearded millennial solipsist and "professional blogger" in a BBC documentary. He is nearly arrested for trying to fly a large camera drone inside the Natural History Museum during public hours! He completely fails to see what might be wrong with this idea, but with bovine conformity he rushes off to take a very expensive and very superficial drone pilot's course (which he treats with complete flippancy). Suddenly it hits me: this guy thinks life is a computer game - the slavish conformity to the rules (it is self defeating to break them in a game) combined with a total lack of any empathy or concern for others (they aren't real in a game, or at least they cannot be really hurt).

I'm afraid that with jerks like this abroad, measures like this are absolutely necessary.