A Tale of Two Sovereigns: Federal and State Use and Regulation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Despite claims to the contrary, the federal government is severely limited in what it can do to regulate unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). States, on the other hand, as governments of general jurisdiction, have expansive powers that they are already using to grapple with the questions posed by UAS related to privacy, crime, and public safety. This chapter outlines the evolution of federal measures, noting their limitations, before delving into three categories of state law, related to law enforcement, criminal measures, and regulatory regimes. The chapter then turns to the history of state sovereignty, looking at states’ jurisdiction over persons and land within their bounds, before turning to the limits of federal interstate commerce authorities. With river navigation and aviation serving as the forerunners of federal power, the chapter distinguishes the types of questions that accompany UAS, arguing that it is in relation to adjacent airspace and noneconomic activities where the federal government is at its weakest in any effort to regulate the states. Up to 500 ft above the ground, states have sovereignty, with authority over roads, land, and waterways. Within this domain, federal Commerce Clause powers only occupy a narrow area, leaving state police powers the dominant framework for UAS. The chapter concludes by highlighting the advantages of having states take the lead for UAS, focusing on the risk to rights of allowing the federal government to move into this realm and underscoring the importance in the role of the states as incubators of innovation

The significance of the qualifying declarations under the Cape Town Convention

This article outlines and critically examines the relationship between the qualifying declarations and the economic advantages of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment. It shows that the qualifying declarations operate rather differently from how they are perceived in academic literature and practice. Specifically, the article shows that the critical advantage of the Convention and the qualifying declaration is the potential to reduce enforcement risk relating to different States in a specific transactional setting and not, as some observers might wrongly perceive, from the Cape Town Discount. Thus, if States are not prepared to make the qualifying declarations, this should not deter them from ratifying the Convention and the Protocol. States and society may benefit from adoption of the Convention and its related protocols with partial—or even without—adoption of the qualifying declarations, bearing in mind of course the interdependency of the Convention’s remedies

A system for synthetic vision and augmented reality in future flight decks

Rockwell Science Center is investigating novel human-computer interaction techniques for enhancing the situational awareness in future flight decks. One aspect is to provide intuitive displays that provide the vital information and the spatial awareness by augmenting the real world with an overlay of relevant information registered to the real world. Such Augmented Reality (AR) techniques can be employed during bad weather scenarios to permit flying in Visual Flight Rules (VFR) in conditions which would normally require Instrumental Flight Rules (IFR). These systems could easily be implemented on heads-up displays (HUD). The advantage of AR systems vs. purely synthetic vision (SV) systems is that the pilot can relate the information overlay to real objects in the world, whereas SV systems provide a constant virtual view, where inconsistencies can hardly be detected. The development of components for such a system led to a demonstrator implemented on a PC. A camera grabs video images which are overlaid with registered information. Orientation of the camera is obtained from an inclinometer and a magnetometer; position is acquired from GPS. In a possible implementation in an airplane, the on-board attitude information can be used for obtaining correct registration. If visibility is sufficient, computer vision modules can be used to fine-tune the registration by matching visual cues with database features. This technology would be especially useful for landing approaches. The current demonstrator provides a frame-rate of 15 fps, using a live video feed as background with an overlay of avionics symbology in the foreground. In addition, terrain rendering from a 1 arc sec. digital elevation model database can be overlaid to provide synthetic vision in case of limited visibility. For true outdoor testing (on ground level), the system has been implemented on a wearable computer

The specifics of unmanned aircraft insurance in conjunction with both national and EU rules and procedures

Insurance in many areas of law has been a core matter on both EU and national levels. The currently available research lack or often show no sign of the insurance matters related to Unmanned Aircrafts and other type of aviation objects. This thesis aims to determine what are the core elements of insurance area when discussing Unmanned Aircraft technologies as emerging new component of aviation market. To understand the EU law applicability on MS national legal systems, there arises a question, as to what are the main issues regarding Latvian Unmanned Aircraft legislation concerning insurance for these aircrafts in comparison with the newly developed EU law? In this context, Unmanned Aircrafts are considered to be aircrafts that are designed to operate autonomously or to be remotely piloted, therefore introducing differing matters as to those in manned aviation. Issues regarding insurance related matters were mostly based on lack of legal certainty in national legislation. The research indicated that there is huge potential in the Unmanned Aircraft industry, that is, if the regulating authorities both on EU and national level provide comprehensive and accessible legal framework for these new technologies