i3 - July/August 2017 - 36

Policy

Stewart Wolpin

I N T R E P I D D RO N E S

magine heading to your car in the morning and,
instead of sitting in traffic for an hour, you instead zip
to work via a highway in the sky in a drone. That's one
future scenario presented in a new exhibit, "Drones: Is the
Sky the Limit?" which opened May 10th at the Intrepid Sea,
Air and Space Museum at Pier 86 in Manhattan.

Exhibits inside the 6,000 square foot space explore the usual definition of "drone"
as either a remote control flying camera or an unmanned military machine.
According to a report from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), hobby
drones in the U.S. will more than triple from 1.1 million in 2016 to more than
3.5 million in 2021, and the agency is processing an average of between 5,0007,000 drone registrations a week. The FAA also projects the number of commercial drones will grow from less than half a million today to 1.6 million by 2021.
Visitors to the exhibit learn a brief history of "unmanned systems" such as hot
air balloons from the 18th century to remote control cameras mounted on kits in
the 19th century to the first remote control airplanes in the mid-20th century.
Much of the exhibit, however, is devoted to current drone uses, including:
●

●

Fire/safety/rescue - flying and peering in
where it is too dangerous for humans.
Hollywood - the ability to capture expansive
overhead shots for movies and documentaries, electronic news gathering and VR presentations sans an expensive helicopter.
Delivery - not just Amazon, but medicinal
and humanitarian aid to areas struck by natural disaster and unreachable by other means.

JULY/AUGUST 2017

●

Nature - tracking agriculture for crop management, wildlife to track populations and
other conservation efforts, and using a DJI
Phantom 3 to explore the previously inaccessible Son Đoòng Cave in central Vietnam.
Entertainment - on display is the Volantis
"flying" dress co-designed and worn by
Lady Gaga in 2013.

Drone Futures

The most fascinating area of the exhibit is
future drone use. On display, for instance,
is a full-sized model of the Kairos autonomous "air taxi" being developed at Northwestern that you would order like an Uber
via a smartphone programmed to fly you
to your destination. Another display shows
the concept Terrafugia TF-X, an enclosed
and more fully developed version of the
flying car backed by Facebook Co-founder
Larry Page. An outfit called Imaginactive
envisions a drone future filled with "drone
tower" apartment buildings decked out
with flying car landing pad balconies like
on the Jetsons.
"Traveling in autonomous air vehicles
may one day be as common as the automobile today," predicts oneTerrafugia panel,
ignoring the massive air traffic control
issues that would be the result of such an
air-filled future. More practical drone usage
futures presented at the exhibit include:
Mosquito control drones
Supplying emergency cellular service
● An automated pet sitter
●
●

Also covered in the exhibit are some
sticky political and legal issues like the
use of military drones for domestic surveillance, whether the FAA should be the sole
decision maker about the use of drones over
private property, and whether we'd be willing to ride in unmanned flying taxis if they
were cheaper and faster than other standard transportation methods.
"Drones: Is the Sky the Limit?,"
co-sponsored by drone maker DJI, the
American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, and the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), along
with public funds from New York state,
will be open until December 3.
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

Svetlana Jovanovic

Drones: The Sky
is not the Limit

There are also interactive exhibits
including one that lets visitors virtually fly
a drone. "This exhibition showcases the
far-reaching impact of drones on countless
human endeavors and gives visitors amazing insight into how far we have come and
how this technology will shape the future,"
explains Susan Marenoff-Zausner, president
of the Intrepid Museum.

https://www.intrepidmuseum.org/drones.aspx https://www.intrepidmuseum.org/drones.aspx https://www.intrepidmuseum.org/drones.aspx

i3 - July/August 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - July/August 2017