Drone regulation: A guide to the laws governing UAVs
- The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has published a guide or laws governing the use of UAVs.
- As of April 2016, 73% of ACP countries did not have any rules or regulations in place; 19% had some regulations in place; and 8% were in the process of formulating them.
- The data gathered in the course of the study have been published on a site hosted by The Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) and are accessible at www.droneregulations.info.
The use and application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or popularly known as drones is increasingly becoming common in agriculture. Farmers can employ drones to assess crop health with thermal imaging, assess drought conditions, and use them to apply insecticides (dronelife, 2017).
Since drones are a latest innovation, in most countries there is no specific legislation that regulate their use. In most cases one has to scoop into various existing laws to know the regulatory and legal framework in the respective country, industry and specific application.
Yet, the use of UAVs in agriculture is a recent development and poses a number of challenges to interested users and national aviation authorities – including those linked to the use of UAVs within their airspace.
Report abstract
The report provides a summary of the existing policies, laws and regulations regarding the use of UAVs in the 79 ACP countries. The informative study, carried out by CTA, is essential for any farming or fishing organisation using drones to facilitate data collection and monitoring.
The results of the research contributed to the population of an online database, comprised of a straightforward country directory with helpful summaries of national drone laws that are regularly updated in line with any changes to regulations.
The results are quite telling: as of April 2016, 73% of ACP countries did not have any rules or regulations in place; 19% had some regulations in place; and 8% were in the process of formulating them.
The information provided in the report was sourced from online newspapers; civil aviation authorities; businesses engaged in sales of UAV-related equipment and training UAV operators; and project websites on UAV-related research programmes and initiatives.
The Global Drone Regulations Database
The data gathered in the project leading to the authoring of this report was computed into a database that provides a country directory with summaries of national drone laws.
Sources
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