As drone shows become more popular, and more companies spring up to provide them at everything from sporting events to Halloween celebrations and trade shows (including LDI!), the industry requires standards to keep audiences safe.
Verge Aero's Executive Chairman, Nils Thorjussen, talked to Live Design about the importance of creating safety standards and working with ASTM.
Live Design: I seem to get regular emails from drone show alliances and organizations, what differentiates this task group and the proposed standards?
Nils Thorjussen: We’re not creating an entity. We’re working within an established, well-respected international standards body that is already doing extensive work in unmanned aviation. It has the experience and resources to guide the effort to create a useful and robust drone show standard. The FAA has encouraged our industry to work with a standards body, and ASTM is the logical choice.
Click here for the full press release on the task group.
LD: Will these standards be enforceable? Will they change any formal certification programs or safety checks?
NT: If the working group does its job correctly and the standards are approved by ASTM, then they will likely be embraced by the FAA and other aviation authorities.
LD: You have had an interest in safety standards for a long time, but was there an incident that prompted the task group?
NT: There was an accident in Orlando in December that precipitated this effort.
To be clear, it is not Verge that’s creating the standard. It is being created by the working group as a whole, I’m just the chair. My job is to facilitate the process, but not to specify what goes into the standard.
My interest in standards is simply because it is the right thing to do. We assumed (incorrectly, out of inexperience) that the FAA would do some of this work. But Part 107, the US regulations governing small unmanned aircraft, was intended to be a “light touch” with reduced FAA oversight in order to stimulate innovation. As a result, it’s the industry’s job to draft these standards in order to guarantee safety. We have come a long way, very quickly, and the industry is now sufficiently mature and experienced to understand what’s necessary to ensure the safety of drone shows.
Separately, because we received so many questions from our customers and others interested in learning more about safety and how drone shows work, we drafted a white paper in an attempt to explain some of the key principles in plain English. Some of the underlying technologies can be obtuse and hard to understand, so we thought a white paper might be helpful. It can be viewed here: https://www.verge.aero/essential-guide-to-drone-show-safety
LD: Is there a specific kind of accident you are trying to avoid?
NT: It can be all kinds of things. The primary requirement is that the drones must stay within their designated operating area and never breach the show's safety perimeter. As long as they do so, neither spectators will be injured nor property will be damaged.
LD: You mention Navigation Redundancy as being particularly important in your safety manual. Can you talk a little bit about what what that is?
NT: Redundancy is a basic principle of manned aviation, and it’s equally relevant here. On passenger aircraft, multiple layers of redundancy ensure that the plane still flies safely even if one component fails. However, given the size of drone show drones, it’s virtually impossible to engineer that level of safety. As a result, they are kept a safe distance away from spectators.
Nevertheless, these drones require a sufficient level of redundancy to ensure they never leave the flight operations area. There are many ways for a drone to lose track of where it is in 3D space and redundancy can minimize the odds of it happening. From a live event production perspective, it’s a bit like always using a safety chain when hanging a lighting fixture. There always needs to be a backup.
The standards working group will identify key areas where redundancy is required, but without being overly prescriptive. Sometimes there are different ways to get the job done. And that’s fine, as long as safety is maintained.
LD: The future of drone shows seems to involve longer battery life, but also pyro drones with the possibility of a fire risk, and larger/heavier drones which can inflict more damage. Are these things the standards should address?
NT: Yes to all of the above, larger drones introduce more risk, as do pyro drones. They will both need to comply with different standards than smaller drones.
In my opinion, we’re still in the early days of the drone show industry. There’s so much untapped creative potential and many new use cases still to come. Just like the evolution of any other piece of entertainment technology, as it matures and prices come down, it gets deployed in new venues. Drone shows will only continue to grow in prevalence and scale, which is why it’s so important to do this standards work now.
LD: What should other practitioners do if they share your concerns? Can they submit suggestions for the safety document or join the task force?
NT: They can join the task force or submit suggestions! Broad industry participation is very much desired.
Contact standards@vergeaero.com.
LD: What are some of your favorite projects and what is Verge Aero focusing on for the future of drone shows?
NT: I love some of the work we’ve done at the Sphere. The playoff work we did for the Philadelphia Eagles is very compelling. It’s a great example of how drones can be effectively deployed for different purposes, including for both entertainment and marketing. The Eagles have found the pre-game playoff drone shows (with free ticket promotion via QR code) to be some of the impactful social media work they’ve done. For the future, we are continuing to evolve the software. It’s way more important than the drones. Just like my previous work on lighting consoles, it’s the key to unleashing creativity—and keeping shows safe.