« on: March 27, 2013, 12:12:44 PM »
Yep.
States answer help wanted ad to be drone test site
Capitalizing on Southern California's aerospace fortunes, two rival groups want to add another laurel: drone test range.
They face crowded competition. In search of an economic boost, more than half the country is looking toward the sky — expected to be buzzing in the near future with pilotless aircraft.
Before that can become reality, the Federal Aviation Administration last month put out a call to test fly drones at half a dozen to-be-determined sites before they can share the same space as commercial jetliners, small aircraft and helicopters.
Fifty teams from 37 states answered, vying to win bragging rights as a hub for unmanned aerial vehicles.
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The untapped civilian market — estimated to be worth billions — has created a face-off, with states perfecting their pitch — ample restricted airspace, industry connections, academic partners — not unlike what you might read in a tourism brochure.
"It's the chance to get in on the ground floor of what may be the next big business," said Peter Singer, a robotics expert at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. "The states competing hope it might make them the robotics equivalent of Detroit for automobiles in the 20th century or Silicon Valley for computers."
Winners will play key roles in helping the government seamlessly transition drones, which are controlled remotely by joystick, into the civilian airspace without crashing into other planes or injuring bystanders.
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Joseph Zeis of the Dayton Development Coalition doesn't see this as a competition.
"When the test site selection is over, we're all collaborating on a single goal" to safely merge drones into the national airspace, said Zeis, who's spearheading the Ohio-Indiana venture.
The FAA is expected to choose the six drone test sites by year's end.
The specter of thousands of unmanned eyes swarming the sky in the coming years has unnerved privacy advocates, who fear ordinary Americans would be overzealously monitored by law enforcement, considered one of the top users of the technology in the future. As part of the selection process, test site hopefuls must publish a privacy policy and follow existing privacy laws.
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http://www.mysouthwestga.com/news/story.aspx?id=877246#.UVMnPRyG1IF
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