FAA Approves Inspection Drone Swarms

It would appear drone swarms have come to civil aviation with the FAA's granting of a waiver to an Israeli company. According to DroneDJ, the FAA is allowing Percepto to fly up to 30 drones under the control of a single pilot beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). The company specializes in infrastructure and pipeline inspections, and the ability to team up the drones will greatly increase the efficiency of those operations according to the company. That, Percepto says, will make the services more affordable and increase the safety of works like pipelines and power transmission lines.

“Simply put, with large-scale remote inspections we’ll see fewer large-scale safety and environmental failures across critical infrastructure,” Percepto Chief Commercial Officer Ariel Avitan said. The "drone-in-a-box" aircraft it sells are fully autonomous and operate under the pilot's supervision. They also have software that allows them to autonomously inspect the stuff they fly over. Avitan called the waiver "the last piece of the remote operations puzzle."