Local businesses see big opportunities ahead in new drone-flight rule

A federal rule that would enable longer-range drone flights is on the horizon—and some local companies say they see a huge opportunity ahead when that rule finally lands.

This month, the Federal Aviation Administration unveiled a proposed Beyond Visual Line of Sight, or BVLOS, rule that would permit operators to fly drones beyond visual range if they meet specified safety, operational and reporting requirements. Such flights are currently permitted only via individual waivers.

“This is a very significant piece of regulation,” said Damon Lercel, an assistant professor in Purdue University’s Polytechnic Institute’s School of Aviation and Transportation Technology. “It’s one that the uncrewed aviation industry has been waiting on for a long time, because it opens up the commercialization, if you will, of broader UAS [uncrewed aircraft system] operations.”

Once the rule takes effect—which could be as soon as early next year—observers expect a huge increase in drone use for everything from package delivery to public safety to agricultural activities to aerial surveying.

“People are thinking about all kinds of new use cases,” said Dan O’Toole, founder and CEO of Fishers-based Arrive AI Inc. “It’s going to be really cool to see what offerings roll out.”

The current rule regulating drone flight, called Part 107 for its place in FAA statutes, is “very limited in the type of operations it allows,” Lercel said. In addition to the requirement that the drone operator keep the drone within eyeshot, Part 107 also specifies that the drone’s total weight—including anything the drone might be carrying—be less than 55 pounds. Part 108—the BVLOS rule—allows total weight of 1,320 pounds for certain unmanned aircraft.

For Arrive, drone-powered package delivery represents a huge area of opportunity. In fact, the company’s original name was Dronedek.

Arrive has developed a smart mailbox—a climate-controlled secure receptacle for human, robot or drone-based pickup and delivery. The company also has a platform that provides tracking data, smart logistics controls and other information to shippers, delivery services and autonomous delivery networks.

Arrive filed its first patent in 2014 and launched as a company in 2019, but it wasn’t until the second quarter of this year that the company earned its first revenue. Most of that came from Greenfield-based health care system Hancock Health, which is using Arrive’s smart mailboxes to test the use of robots in delivering biological specimens on the campus of Hancock Regional Hospital.

The proposed BVLOS rule is good news for Arrive, O’Toole said, because it sets the stage for drone delivery. This, in turn, creates demand for Arrive’s smart mailboxes. The drone can deliver the item to a locked and climate-controlled smart mailbox, keeping the item safe until the recipient retrieves it.

“If you have this whole new autonomous delivery industry, you’re most certainly going to have a whole new autonomous delivery theft industry as well,” O’Toole said. “People are going to follow drones [for the purpose of stealing their delivery cargo]. They’re going to follow robots. … Can you really afford to lose chain of custody on anything—your pharmaceuticals, your iPads, your cell phones, your food?”

Another Fishers-based company, Pierce Aerospace, also anticipates opportunity from the BVLOS rule.

“What we’re going to see with Part 108 is an exponential expansion of the amount of aircraft that are flying in the airspace,” said Aaron Pierce, co-founder and CEO of Fishers-based Pierce Aerospace.

And more drones in the sky means more potential customers for Pierce Aerospace.

The company, which launched in 2016, has developed technology for detecting, tracking and identifying drones. The company offers remote ID beacons that attach to a drone and signal its identification and location information. It also makes sensors that can detect those beacon signals.

Among its other provisions, Part 108 includes requirements relating to remote ID and other technology for identifying and tracking drones and keeping them at a safe distance from other aircraft.

To date, most of Pierce Aerospace’s business has come from government customers, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the military.

But Pierce predicted that the balance will shift toward commercial customers. Within three years, maybe sooner, the company’s co-founder said, government customers will make up only about 20% of Pierce Aerospace’s business, with the other 80% coming from commercial customers.

“To us, that shift represents a significant market expansion,” Pierce said.

And that shift has already started. Last month, he said, the company for the first time received more orders from commercial customers than from government customers.

Pierce said his company is preparing for growth, and that includes expanding its workforce, starting this year.

The company currently has 14 employees, he said, and “by this time next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had double that talent.”

Pierce said parcel delivery offers the biggest opportunity for potential drone use, simply because buying items online for home delivery is already popular.

Lercel, the Purdue professor, said he also sees significant opportunities for emergency personnel and first responders, who could use drones to surveil a fire or crime scene before humans arrive or to assess areas for storm damage.

Some local companies say they’re still assessing how Part 108 might affect them.

Indianapolis-based Intelinair Inc. is an ag-tech company that analyzes aerial images, weather data and other information to help farmers monitor their fields and spot potential problems. Some of Intelinair’s data is collected by drones.

“While we are still evaluating the specifics of the proposed rule, generally we see this as a positive step toward unlocking broader adoption of drone technology,” Intelinair Vice President of Marketing Robyn Heine told IBJ in an email. “We will continue to monitor the process closely and assess how it may create new opportunities for our work with farmers and partners.”

Another local ag-tech company, Westfield-based Taranis, also offers a crop intelligence platform that analyzes satellite imagery and drone photos to provide insights to farmers.

A Taranis spokesperson said the company is still analyzing the impact Part 108 might have on its business.•