A Business Cluster Providing Robotics and Unmanned Systems (UxS) Solutions
Join us in celebrating our CEO and founder, Jonathan Daniels, FASTM, on his recent selection by the Helicopter Association International Board of Directors as special advisor for UAS.
Read more in this release from HAI here
PACI, Inc is very proud to represent Technology/Network Infrastructure interests as a member of the newly-announced Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) Operations Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC).
PACI was one of the first eight companies to receive a Part 31/33 Waiver enabling commercial BVLOS flight operations.
The BVLOS ARC is chartered to help the Federal Aviation Administration develop a regulatory path for routine Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations. This rulemaking committee will consider the safety, security and environmental needs, as well as societal benefits, of these operations.
Jonathan Daniels, FASTM, founder and CEO, will serve as the PACI primary participant.
Read more about the BVLOS ARC here.
Montréal, 1 March 2021 – During its ongoing 222nd Session, the ICAO Council today adopted new and amended Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) driving important progress on the international safety and interoperability of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS).
The new provisions will become effective on 12 July 2021, and applicable as of 26 November 2026. The most important pertain to Annex 8 — Airworthiness of Aircraft to the Chicago Convention, and cover certification requirements for remotely piloted aeroplanes and helicopters, in addition to the remote pilot stations (RPS) they are operated from.
The latest RPAS progress required minor modifications to Annexes 1 (Personnel Licensing) and 2 (Rules of the Air) of the Convention, and will eventually be supported by more substantial Annex 2 changes already in development. Previous Annex 1 Standards adopted by the Council in 2018 introduced a regulatory structure for the issuance of remote pilot licences for applicability as of November 2022.
Further information is available here
American Robotics, a leading developer of fully-automated commercial drone systems, today became the first company approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate automated drones without human operators on-site.
The company’s Scout System™ features advanced acoustic Detect-and-Avoid (DAA) technology that enables its drones to maintain a safe distance from other aircraft at all times. By developing a layered, redundant system of safety that includes proprietary technical and operational risk mitigations,
After numerous flights at Searchlight, including under an Experimental Category Special Airworthiness Certificate and using the Praxis BVLOS 107.31/33 Waiver, American Robotics has proven that its drone-based aerial intelligence platform operates safely in the National Airspace System (NAS), even when it conducts flights Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) of the operator.
Read their press release at this link.
Listen to an interview with Reese Mozer, American Robotics CEO, at this podcast.
Read more at Dronelife with this link, at JD Supra about their exemption here, as covered by Commercial UAV News here and a SlashGear here.
US-based MissionGO, a provider of unmanned aviation solutions, and Nevada Donor Network, an organ procurement organization (OPO) serving the state of Nevada, have announced two successful test flights carrying a human organ and tissue via a UAS on 17 September, 2020.
Longest organ delivery via UAS
The second flight, which delivered a research kidney from the Searchlight Airport (1L3) to a location outside of the town of Cal-Nev-Ari, marked the longest organ delivery flight in UAS history. This flight surpassed the distance of a historic flight in April 2019 when MissionGO team members Anthony Pucciarella and Ryan Henderson, in their roles at the University of Maryland UAS Test Site and in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center, delivered the first kidney by UAS that was then successfully transplanted into a patient.
MissionGO chose Searchlight Airport (1L3) as an appropriate location for organ delivery testing because of its unique environment. The sparsely populated area, wide open terrain, class G airspace, flexible access, and unparalleled support from Praxis Aerospace Concepts International make this an ideal testing ground.
The staff and personnel from Praxis Aerospace Concepts International make operating unmanned aircraft here easy and safe for all types of UAS.
Read more about this flight in the original press release here, at Air and Rescue’s article here, follow the updates on Linkedin here, or on Twitter here.
Contact Searchlight Center here for more information, or call 702-586-1160 to schedule.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued the proposed rule for remote identification of drones. The proposed Remote I.D. rule would apply to all drones that are required to register with the FAA (recreational drones weighing under 0.55 pounds are not required to register), as well as to people who operate foreign civil drone in the United States.
Jonathan Daniels, PACI’s CEO, represented ASTM as a voting member on the 2017 FAA Aviation Rulemaking Committee, and coined the term “electronic license plate”
Read the unpublished notice here, and check frequently for the public comment period.
The D&R testing is comprised of test hours and cycles fully representative of desired operating state operations. The D&R testing must also include verification of all operational limits and the entire aircraft flight envelope to ensure testing thoroughly encompasses the possible conditions that will be encountered in service.
D&R Test Hour Requirements
| Population density (people per square mile) | Baseline configuration (flight hours) | Reduced probability of injury configuration <30% AIS 3 or greater injury (flight hours) |
| Up to 100 (Rural) | 375 | 150 |
| Up to 3000 | 1100 | 540 |
| Up to 7000 | 2500 | 1300 |
| Up to 10,000 | 3600 | 1800 |
| Up to 14,000 | 5000 | 2500 |
| Up to 20,000 | 7200 | 3600 |
As a rule, the D&R testing must demonstrate safe flight across the entire operational envelope and up to all operational limitations, for all phases of flight and all aircraft configurations.
Applicants will only be certificated to fly within limitations that have been fully demonstrated in test. For example, the D&R testing must encompass the most adverse weather conditions (wind, temperature, density altitude, precipitation, etc.) for which certification is sought.
Environmental conditions should also be considered, such as humidity, sand, dust, salt, particulates or foreign objects that could be ingested such as insects, etc. Additionally, D&R testing should take place in an operationally representative radio frequency and electromagnetic environment to the extent possible.
With 300+ days of flying weather a year, PACI can support Applicants seeking a Determination of Reliability (with third-party oversight) and our affiliated UAS DAR can assist in obtaining operating approval and permission to fly for the needed limitations.
Learn more by reading here
As the first university approved to meet ASTM International for training students in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) , the UND John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences is planning to extend this expertise beyond the campus.
Paul Snyder, director of the UND Aerospace UAS Program, is a member of the ASTM International committee that developed standards for drone operation and maintenance as a joint program with Praxis Aerospace Concepts International Inc. He noted that receiving ASTM’s stamp of approval is important for UND’s UAS students, but also offers the potential to train UAS operators for industry.
You can read the original UND press release here. You can read more about the ASTM-PAVI UAS Approved Training Provider program here.
The FAA and several industrial partners have successfully concluded real-world testing of unmanned traffic management systems for integrating drones into airspace in the USA. “The Eldorado and Piute Valley has been the home of innovation in UAS airspace for commercial BVLOS operations. We started the nation’s first commercial droneport in 2015 and expanded our testing corridor to include Searchlight Airpark in 2017,” explained Jonathan Daniels, PACI’s CEO and the Airport Manager for Searchlight.
The FAA operational tests were part of a program called the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management Pilot Program (UPP) launched in 2017 and conducted at sites in Nevada, North Dakota and Virginia. The UPP aims to help determine the services and capabilities UTM must provide to support extended and enhanced drone operations in the future.
PACI interns from the University of Nevada- Las Vegas, certified through AUVSI’s Trusted Operator Program™ and acting as Remote Pilots-in-Command, used the ANRA Technologies DroneUSS™ software platform to coordinate with the other participants of the UPP during operations on the Searchlight Airpark. Nevada’s senior Congresswoman, Dina Titus, later commended their work during the VIP Demo day at the end of the UPP.
UTM software platform for UPP and see this as a steppingstone to more advanced drone operations at Searchlight Airpark,” stated Brent Klavon, VP of Operations at ANRA Technologies.
During the last two weeks of July, several companies from around the country converged on the Searchlight Airpark to test Ground-based Detect and Avoid systems with both VLOS and Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS). These test flights were overseen by a PACI Remote-Pilot-In-Command using PACI’s Part 107 BVLOS within the Piute Valley. AirMap provided the PACI operations control center with a real-time operating picture of the airspace for both manned and unmanned aircraft using their proven UAS Service Supplier (USS) platform, in a similar manner as to recent demonstrations with the Virginia UPP, and using ASTM standards in California and Switzerland.
“We’re offering the UAS industry a one-stop-shop operation,” said Daniels. “With our full-service facility in Henderson, our customers are able to integrate system components right into their new or existing aircraft and then test fly at our FAA UAS Test Range just a few miles down the road. Our goal was to develop a droneport where new or existing customers could utilize our capabilities to support their project without the expense of building up the capability internally or organically- in the same manner that legacy aviation does with traditional airports.”
About Praxis Aerospace Concepts International, Inc.
Founded in 2011, PACI is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business based in Southern Nevada. The company’s mission is to develop practical solutions for multi-modal (ground-air-sea-industrial) response robotics and unmanned systems (UxS) using a mix of proprietary technology, unique team domain expertise, and unique partnerships, PACI develops and operates laboratory and field facilities for autonomous systems research, development, test, evaluation, deployment, commercialization, and training. Praxis Aerospace Concepts International, Inc. currently serves over 20 clients with military, public and civil robotics/unmanned systems across the globe.
About ANRA Technologies
ANRA Technologies is a provider of end-to-end solutions for UAS operators and airspace managers. ANRA has developed two software platforms for commercial UAS operations. One platform is for UAS traffic management (DroneUSS™) and the other is for orchestrating workflow (DroneOSS™). Both platforms have been rigorously tested and vetted by the world’s foremost government aviation entities and are operational today at multiple test sites, commercial enterprises and UAS Corridors.
ANRA’s software platform supports a myriad of UAS through a cloud-based architecture to enable airspace organization and management, flight awareness, and strategic deconfliction while supporting stakeholder interfaces and integrations. ANRA Technologies has been working on collaborative UTM research and deployments with regulators and Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP) in United States, United Kingdom, Europe as well as South America.
You can read the full article on SUASNews here