I don't have a lot of cash, what I do have is the knowledge, skill and experience to do this project.

Besides, why the hell should an organisation charged with the responsibility of keeping the airspace *safe* be placing so many hurdles in the way of a project that is designed to do just that?

It's not like I'm planning on flying a big heavy drone over a built-up area or flying in controlled airspace. It is the fact that somehow, because an RC plane has something with commercial potential strapped to it then it becomes so unsafe as to require all this extra regulation is a nonsense.

Sadly, I'm old enough to remember an era when government and its bureaucracies played a much different role and weren't micro-managing every activity of its citizens, while also spying on their every communication and movement.

These days you can't fart without the permission of some self-important little civil servant (and in the days of alleged AGW, this really isn't far from the truth).

Obviously I'm not about to give too much away -- suffice to say that it is an active system which operates below the RF noise floor and has two elements to the sense component (not visual or audio though).

You are right that conventional radar is too heavy and too power-hungry for this type of application.

Suffice to say that this approach to SAA would not be possible without some serious (and compact/low-energy) processing power, only made possible by the advances of recent years.

Unfortunately it's been made very clear to me that no forgiveness would be forthcoming, should I dare to thumb my nose at this authority.

Yes, that's the sorry state of NZ's bureaucracy on all too many occasions.

The problem is that there's a catch-22 here.

Before I can gain any worthwhile IP protection (ie: a patent), I need to ensure that the design is tested/finalised. Without IP protection, the level of disclosure required to negotiate a partnership would produce a significant risk (especially considering the size of the market) of a prospective partner just taking the technology and using it then saying "so sue us" (I've had that happen before).

I've been around long enough to realise that such partnerships can be fraught with peril, especially when you're talking about tech breakthroughs that have this level of commercial potential - after all, the US government is mandating the use of these systems by 2016 so it's a "must have" for anyone wanting to use "drones" in national airspace.

I'm a guy who's been in the electronics and software industry for over 40 years and have a very strong background in RF, digital and analog systems.

I recently started putting that expertise to work in an attempt to come up with an effective and affordable "Sense And Avoid" (SAA) system -- at least in part because I fly FPV RC model aircraft and for these to be flown safely "beyond visual line of sight", some form of SAA is required.

After spending a considerable amount of time investigating previous strategies and considering the strengths and weaknesses of the available technologies, I have designed and prototyped a system that delivers a 1-mile "sphere of awareness" around any craft on which it is installed.

It does not rely on transponders (thus will "sense" *any* potential threat within that 1-mile sphere) and is small/light (250g) enough to be fitted to all but the smallest unmanned craft. The price (in volume production) would also be very reasonable -- about US$250.

Initial (ground-based, static) testing has shown that the prototype system conforms very closely to the design goals and expectations -- the next step is to strap a second prototype to a small foam RC model plane and start collecting dynamic data which will be used to test and refine the firmware.

Unfortunately -- this is where everything turns to custard.

The national airspace administrator here in New Zealand is CAA (our equivalent of the USA's FAA). They, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that since what I'm working on has significant commercial potential, I can not continue my development work (ie: strap this thing to a small foam RC model and fly it over a grassy paddock in the countryside) without first gaining a "commercial operating authority".

Now I've been flying RC models for almost 50 years and have a very high level of skill. Hell, I have two very popular YouTube channels with a total of over 45 million views and 100K subscribers in which I entertain and inform folks on the subject of RC models. However, all this counts for nothing and, according to CAA, if I want to continue my development of this technology by strapping it (as a passive payload) to the type of small foam model that thousands of folk fly here every weekend, I must jump a raft of ridiculous hurdles.

Firstly, the "minimum requirement" is a full-sized pilot's license -- which costs about $18K to obtain in this country.

Secondly, I have to file all sorts of safety plans, obtain a radio qualification and engage in a huge amount of bureaucratic crap -- simply to do what I've done as a hobbyist for decades -- fly a tiny (900g) foam RC plane over a grassy field in the countryside.

Now I don't have $18K to spend getting a pilot's license, besides which, this is silly bureaucratic nonsense!

As a result, the technology which I've developed and which stands to be a real "game changer" with massive export/earnings potential for this tiny nation that keeps crowing about its "innovative tech sector" is becalmed because some idiot desk-jockies seem to think that somehow, simply because what I'm doing has commercial potential, any RC flying I do will result in widespread death and destruction -- unless I spend months filling in forms, learning to fly a full-sized plane and licking boots.

This, my friends, is why New Zealand barely qualifies as a first-world country and will *never* play any significant role in the tech world.

Meanwhile, the same country spends $1m of taxpayers' money on something as lame and dangerous as the Martin Jetpack.

Go figure!

Those who ask "why not just find a quiet spot and test it anyway without telling anyone?"... well CAA have advised me that if I dare to do this without the required "authority", they will take "enforcement action" against me. So, if I turn around and say "I've tested it and it works" then it's "do not collect $200, do not pass go, go directly to jail".

And for those who ask "if this technology works as well as you say, why not get an investor to fund you or partner with someone who already has the necessary authority?"... My original goal was to produce a low-cost solution that could be used by the RC model community to make the hobby of FPV flying much safer. I don't need investors, I have enough money to continue the development and testing because that's mainly sweat-equity. To bring in investors or partners at this stage would result in the final cost of the system escallating far beyond that which could be afforded by hobbyists -- investors/partners generally want significant returns on their investments.

And there's also the matter of principle here.

Perhaps it would be a good time for DARPA to offer one of their technology challenges... perhaps $1m to the first team/person who can successfully bring down a drone using a home-made countermeasure.

That way we'd know for sure just how viable such "amateur" countermeasures would be (and I'd be $1m richer :-)

Seriously though -- drones flying at lower altitudes (ie: 5000m or lower) would *not* be that hard to take out using "off the shelf" technology adapted and applied in innovative ways.

You guys are all sissies! :-)

The longest I've gone without sleep is almost 48 hours and I have to say the last few hours of that were really trippy!

I was working hard to get a big software project out the door and I have to say that I was pretty productive right up to about hour 40 -- then I started making mistakes (despite the coffee). By about the 44th hour I was decidedly paranoid so decided to walk home and have some sleep.

That walk home was so damned scary. The sun was just coming up and it felt like there were people hiding behind every lamp-post and in every shadow.

Once I did get home and fall into bed, I could not get to sleep for several hours because I was constantly getting up to check if the door was locked and to check every little noise.

It's an experience that everyone should have at least once (so they can understand it) but hell, I'd never do it again.

When I was younger I could pull the occasional overnight coding session (24hrs straight) and recover with just 4-5 hours of sleep but these days (I'm 60 now), even missing an hour's sleep makes me feel crappy the following day.

What's always annoyed me most about sleep deprivation is that you feel crappy -- right up until the mid/late evening of the next day when it's time to go to bed. Suddenly, the feelings of fatigue subside and you're tempted to stay up even later than you did the night before. They say most people's circadian cycle is closer to 25 hours than 24 hours and in my case I know that is true.

I was once working in an isolated location (more productive coding that way) and simply went to bed when tired -- got up when I awoke. Sure enough, my sleep period slowly drifted around -- getting about an hour later every day until over the period of nearly a month, I was right back where I started.

Sleep is interesting stuff -- it's just a shame I'm never awake when it happens :-)

Surely everyone here has watched Iron Sky ????

Hell, *that* is why it's a bad idea to mine He3 on the moon. Before you know it, we'll be over-run with Nazis from the dark side of the moon!

It combines active and passive elements (but it's not optical or audio).

As an interesting sidebar...

The missing piece of technology required to *safely* integrate drones into a country's national airspace is something called "Sense And Avoid" (SAA).

Now for the past year or so, I've been developing an SAA system that does not rely on transponders (as most existing SAA systems do) and so far the test results are very encouraging. In effect, this SAA creates a virtual sphere around the craft to which it is fitted and then tracks any objects entering that sphere - plotting and extrapolating their course while constantly checking to see if it is convergent with the host craft. Also, unlike other SAA systems, this unit is small, light and cheap (under 250g and could be mass-produced for around US$300 each).

The next phase of testing is to strap the hardware to a small foam RC model and fly it over a grassy meadow so as to generate some "real world" datasets for refining the software algorithms and coding.

You'd think that would be simple right? You'd think that the authority responsible for ensuring the safety of the national airspace would be pulling out the stops to support such a valuable piece of safety technology -- right?

Well in a world free of politics and bureaucracy it would be -- however, that's not the world in which we live.

Here in NZ, the CAA (our version of the FAA) has declared that because my development work is "commercial" in nature (even though it's entirely self-funded), I must get a "commercial operating authority" before I can fly my toy plane over a grassy meadow.

If I do not get this authority, which they tell me involves gaining various full-sized pilot qualifications at significant cost, before flying my toy plane, they will take "enforcement action" against me (stiff fines and/or a term of imprisonment).

WTF?

CAA has openly acknowledged that this device has huge potential to increase the safety of the national airspace by reducing the risks of mid-air collisions between UAVs and full-sized, and even between full-sized and full-sized (there were 10 reported "near misses" at an airfield near here last year alone).

However, because *they* have deemed my project (despite my suggestions I might eventually open-source it) to be "commercial", I am now unable to continue working on this device.

I can fly a 7Kg gas-powed model with a 5hp engine up front over the grassy meadow quite legally. I can fly a 200mph jet-powered RC model over that grassy meadow without fear of prosecution. But... if I strap 300g of passive electronics to a 900g RC model made of foam while developing technology to dramatically improve air-safety then it's "do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to jail".

Unbelievable!

Uh wrong!

Copying something that someone owns and chooses to *sell* (ie: a book, software, music or whatever) *does* deprive someone of something -- the revenue that they would have received when they sold that to you.

Of course the argument is that most of those doing the copying would not have actually purchased (paid for) the material anyway so there's no loss of revenue -- but even that is flawed. If the copier believes that the material isn't worth paying for then they ascribe a lower value to it than the owner. In that case, if they truly believe it has a low value, why copy it?

If you take the time to copy something then you *do* ascribe a value to it. At the very least, *this* sum is the amount you have *stolen* from the legitimate owner and copyright holder.

If you still claim it has no value then one must ask, why are you wasting your time and bandwidth copying stuff that you don't want?

Indeed. This is how the dark ages came about.

Warning, drones may cause cancer in the State of California!

Doesn't everything cause cancer in the state of California?

Will they put little tags on the drones that must not be removed under threat of prosecution?

Regulations -- a poor substitute for commonsense.