Drone makers struggle foracceptanceBy  David  Uberti   |    GLOBE  CORRESPONDENT          APRIL  07 ,  2013

CHARLIE  MAHONEY  FOR  THE  BOSTON  GLOBE

Jason  Walker  of  CyPhy  says  the  image  of  drones  “flying  around  mindlessly  doing  somenefarious  thing  is  not  accurate.”

WASHINGTON  —  The  Danvers-­based  drone  manufacturer  CyPhy  Works  doesn’t

build  flying  robots  that  rain  Hellfire  missiles  on  people  or  record  license  plate

numbers  from  40,000  feet.  Its  drones  are  designed  for  peaceful  missions  —  aerial

inspections  of  buildings  and  bridges,  or  observing  crime  scenes.

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CHARLIE  MAHONEY  FOR  THE  GLOBE

Danvers-­based  CyPhy  unveiled  its  firstcommercial  drone  models  inDecember.  CyPhy’s  EASE  drone,  ideal

But  CyPhy  and  other  manufacturers  are  battling  the  negative  images  of  better-­

known  military  drones  as  they  struggle  to  win  public  and  political  acceptance  for

commercially  marketed  drones  for  domestic  airspace.  The  consequences  are

significant  for  a  nascent  industry  that  claims  the  potential  to  create  70,000  US

jobs  by  2017,  including  2,000  in  Massachusetts.

The  use  of  drones  to  combat  terrorism  overseas  is  attracting  increasingly  negative

attention  in  Washington.  President  Obama  is  considering  taking  its  lethal  drone

program  away  from  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency  and  placing  it  in  the  hands  of

the  Pentagon,  which  has  greater  restrictions  and  accountability.

Lawmakers,  meanwhile,  including  Representative  Edward  Markey  of

Massachusetts,  a  candidate  for  Senate,  are  introducing  legislation  to  limit  how

drones  can  be  used  by  law  enforcement,  firefighters,  farmers,  the  media,  and

others  in  American  skies.

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The  domestic  drone  industry  is  scrambling

to  respond  in  Washington  in  public

testimony,  lobbying,  and  trade  conferences

—  with  limited  effectiveness.  Companies  are

trying  to  purge  the  word  “drone’’  and  its

lethal  connotations  from  the  lexicon  —  an  effort  that  is  failing  dismally  so  far.

“I  appreciate  you  telling  us  what  we  should

call  them.  You  leave  that  decision  to  us,”

Senate  Judiciary  Committee  chairman  Patrick

J.  Leahy  snapped,  as  an  industry  association

representative  vainly  sought  to  persuade

senators  at  a  hearing  to  use  terms  like

“pilotless  vehicle.’’

Founded  in  2008,  CyPhy  unveiled  its  first

commercial  drone  models  in  December.  They

are  nothing  like  the  American  robotic

RelatedExamples  of  drones  from  thedomestic  industry

for  aerial  inspections,  fits  into  abackpack.

weapons  flying  over  Pakistan  and  Yemen.

CyPhy’s  EASE  drone,  ideal  for  aerial

inspections,  fits  into  a  backpack,  while  the

PARC  model  is  tailored  to  longer-­term

observation  of  crime  scenes  or  disaster

areas.

Other  companies  producing  drones  boast  of  firefighting  capabilities  and  real-­time

weather  analysis.  The  largest  industry  trade  group  —  the  Association  for

Unmanned  Vehicle  Systems  International  —  predicts  that  most  manufacturing

growth  will  be  spurred  by  agriculture  demand  and  law-­enforcement  work.

But  civil  liberties  advocates  unleashed  a  torrent  of  criticism  last  year  when

Congress  mandated  the  Federal  Aviation  Administration  to  craft  regulations  for

drone  use  in  US  skies  by  the  end  of  2015.  Fears  of  unwarranted  privacy  violations,

domestic  spying,  and  even  questions  about  armed  attacks  on  US  soil  reached  a

crescendo  this  month  and  forced  the  industry  into  a  defensive  posture.

How  those  regulations  are  shaped  will  have  a  major  impact  on  whether  the  market

for  domestically  operated  drones  truly  takes  off.

Markey’s  legislation,  introduced  last  week,  aims  to  prevent  “flying  robots  from

becoming  spying  robots,”  a  statement  said.  His  legislation  would  not  permit  an

FAA  license  unless  the  applicant  discloses  who  will  operate  the  drone,  where  it

will  be  flown,  what  sort  of  data  it  will  collect,  how  the  data  will  be  used,  and

whether  the  information  will  be  sold  to  third  parties.

Concern  about  the  potential  use  of  domestic  drones  reached  its  peak  on  March  6

when  Kentucky  Republican  Rand  Paul  mounted  a  13-­hour  filibuster  on  the  Senate

floor  questioning  the  Obama  administration’s  ability  to  preemptively  target

American  citizens  suspected  of  terrorist  activities.

“No  American  should  be  killed  by  a  drone  on  American  soil  without  first  being

charged  with  a  crime,  without  first  being  found  guilty  by  a  court,”  Paul  declared.

The  administration’s  response  —  that  it  had  no  power  to  target  citizens  within  US

borders  —  didn’t  end  the  argument,  and  start-­up  executives,  and  engineers  and

inventors  around  the  country  have  been  shocked  by  the  depth  of  the  controversy.

“It  comes  up  in  almost  every  conversation  about  the  products  and  the  company

and  the  way  forward,”  CyPhy  director  of  operations  Jason  Walker  said.  “The  word

[drone]  has  a  lot  to  do  with  it.  The  idea  that  there  are  these  robots  flying  around

mindlessly  doing  some  nefarious  thing  is  not  accurate.  From  a  technical

standpoint,  it’s  silly.”

Advocates  of  the  fledgling  domestic  industry  —  ranging  from  biologists  to  border

patrol  agents  —  are  now  rallying  resources  to  stem  the  tide  of  bad  press.

“This  happened  so  fast  that  it  took  all  of  us  aback,”  Stephen  Ingley,  director  of  the

Airborne  Law  Enforcement  Association,  said  at  an  unmanned  systems  conference

in  March  in  Arlington,  Va.

He  added  that  the  industry  doesn’t  have  the  political  clout  or  social  foothold  to

shift  the  conversation  from  potential  dangers  to  likely  benefits.

To  be  sure,  UAV  proponents  agree  that  privacy  concerns  are  valid,  acknowledging

the  potential  for  misuse  among  criminals,  paparazzi,  and  government  agencies.  But

they  contend  the  anxiety  is  overblown,  as  drone  sensors  and  cameras  are  no

different  than  those  used  in  manned  aircraft.

“This  is  more  than  a  pilotless  vehicle,”  Michael  Toscano,  president  of  the

Association  for  Unmanned  Vehicle  Systems  International,  said  at  Leahy’s  Senate

Judiciary  Committee  hearing,  convened  to  consider  privacy  risks.  “There’s  nothing

unmanned  about  unmanned  systems.’’

Though  defense  giants  that  produce  military  drones  have  been  lobbying  Congress

for  years,  smaller  start-­ups  and  inventors  began  seeking  to  influence  lawmakers’

opinions  only  in  2007.  The  Congressional  Unmanned  Systems  Caucus,  cochaired

by  Representatives  Buck  McKeon  of  California  and  Henry  Cuellar  of  Texas,  has

grown  to  nearly  60  members.  It  aims  to  “educate”  lawmakers  on  an  industry  that

will  “improve  our  lives  as  public  acceptance  progresses,”  according  to  its  website.

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Caucus  members  have  garnered  nearly  $8  million  in  campaign  contributions  from

drone  firms  over  the  past  four  years,  according  to  the  Center  for  Responsive

Politics,  a  nonpartisan  research  organization  that  tracks  money  in  government.

The  industry  trade  group,  meanwhile,  has  doubled  its  lobbying  expenditures  to

about  $250,000  annually  as  Congress  and  government  agencies  craft  regulations.

At  a  trade  meeting  held  at  a  Virginia  Tech  research  center  last  week,  industry

leaders  discussed  the  need  to  increase  public  outreach  to  overcome  drones’  cloak-­

and-­dagger  stigma.

Physical  Sciences  Inc.  in  Andover  is  among  the  firms  making  the  transition  from

defense  to  domestic  uses,  tailoring  drones  for  law  enforcement  agencies  and

anticipating  a  price  tag  of  $1,000  or  less,  said  Tom  Vaneck,  vice  president  of  space

technologies.

Though  his  firm  hasn’t  thought  of  a  catchy  replacement  for  the  term  UAV,  it  has

begun  discussing  more  proactive  ways  to  laud  everyday  uses  such  as  aiding  first

responders.  Such  efforts  will  probably  target  youth  at  the  local  level  since  “the

younger  generation  is  almost  always  more  open  to  new  technology,”  he  said.

“Let’s  go  to  grade  schools  and  have  kids  fly  one  of  these  things,’’  Vaneck  said,  “so

it’s  not  the  boogeyman  anymore.”

Mary  Cummings,  an  associate  professor  of  aeronautics  and  astronautics  at  MIT,

said  public  suspicion  will  dissipate  as  the  technology  becomes  more  familiar.  She’s

one  of  the  few  in  the  industry  who  doesn’t  mind  the  “drone’’  moniker.

“If  that’s  the  name  the  public  wants  to  call  it,  then  let’s  just  make  a  real  definition

of  it,”  the  former  Navy  fighter  pilot  said.  Besides,  she  added,  “it’s  not  a  mouthful.”