ydqa ep 26

John Dickow: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Your Drone Questions Answered. I'm John Dicko with the Drone Launch Academy. Here to find the answers to your drone questions. And today I have with me founder of Drone Launch Academy, David Young.

David, thanks for joining me today.

David Young: John, what's up man? Thanks for having me back on again. No problem.

John Dickow: So today's question is actually pretty relevant. our question is, can you and how do you retrofit a drone, an existing drone to meet remote ID requirements? And very timely, because this requirement is coming up within roughly two weeks from the time we're recording this episode now.

So, David, maybe you just kind of start off, let us know exactly what this remote ID law

David Young: is all about. So if you're not familiar with remote id, it's been a hot topic for a little while in the drone world, but it's finally getting implemented. There were a few different dates. So the f a a, came out with a, a rule a while back that said, Hey, we're gonna introduce this thing called remote id.

And what it does is it's going to be a technology, that's gonna be required to be built into the drones that broadcast the [00:01:00] drone's location. It broadcasts the operator's location, like where they're standing. it broadcasts where the drone took off from and it also broadcasts, telemetry data. So like altitude speed, things like that.

I think the main intent is, you know, for law enforcement, let's say someone's. Flying a drone over the Super Bowl and you know, they're posing a threat, right? They can hypothetically identify, where that drone is, where the operator is, where the takeoff, point was and all that. so to increase safety situational awareness, you could hypothetically integrate this in to make sure it doesn't hit air traffic and things like that.

there's been a lot of pushback from some people for privacy concerns. however, the remote ID module does not transmit any personal information. It's not like your name, address or anything like that. but hypothetically, someone could have the receiver.

see the transmission from your drone and see where you are standing. So if someone really hated drone pilots, they could go find where you were, while you were flying and, I don't know, do something to you. Uh, that's what some people are saying that they're concerned about. this question is concerned with, okay, let's say you're someone who does want to be compliant with the law.

Hopefully you are. And, you have [00:02:00] an older drone. And when I say older drone, you should be thinking anything. Pre like a year or two ago. So anything like the new Mavic threes that are coming out, or the Mavic Air three, even the Mavic Air two Ss, those already have remote ID functionality built into them from the manufacturer because the F A A set a date, previously, which they then extended that said, Hey manufacturers, here's your deadline to become compliant with our.

requirements for this remote id. So all these drone manufacturers that they wanted to sell drones in the us, they had to have this functionality built in. So they did that. the functionality is built in and can be turned on with, software. But for older drones, they didn't have that kind of broadcast chip in there, the broadcast module inside of, the drone.

So now if you legally wanna be compliant, you have to find, you have to retrofit your older drone with this module. And the problem lately has been, there really are no modules. To test. So a few companies had come out with modules that you could just directly plug into your [00:03:00] drone. I mean, literally think like double-sided, like three M tape, stick it to the top of your drone, and then connect a cable from the broadcast module to your drone.

A lot of times there's like a A U S B C port on your drone, where you can, you know, transfer data, things like that. You can literally plug that in there. Plug this into the, remote ID broadcast module, stick it on your drone, and hypothetically be compliant. Right. But, in my research, and as we've been looking around for this, and we've covered this a bit before, At the moment, they're just all backordered, and some of them are kind of expensive.

So the ones that are pre-done, right, where they either have their own power source or, you're just kind of sticking 'em on top of the drone. They're not hardwired in or they're not inside of the components, right? They're somewhere external on the drone. the main one that I've seen is a company called Drone Tag.

And they've got something called the Drone Tag Beacon that's 220 US dollars, I believe. They're not a American company, but, that's backordered until October of 2023. So this new rule is supposed to come out September 16th. So people are gonna have a really hard time. Being compliant at all, if they want to be, because they can't even get these parts.[00:04:00]

So I've heard unofficially that the f a a is gonna be pretty lax about enforcing this at first. It's kinda the impression they gave at their symposium that they did, a little while back. So I imagine they're gonna give people some time to, do this and, and get caught up, especially since you really can't get your hands on any of these.

so drone tag's got one called the Drone Tag Beacon. another one we could find, was called, drone Beacon, by a company called Blue Mark. that was about, 129, euros, or you can convert that, but again, they're sold out, back ordered until October as well. So that's a month away.

And then another one that I was able to find was from, U A V, ionics, and that's called ping, R I d. That one was $300. And I was like, oh, sweet. I found one that's in stock wrong. It says Backordered, uh, and it doesn't give any date. So it's hard to know exactly when that one will be. So those are the three options I've found.

you're gonna pay more for those, again, two to 300 bucks for those add-on modules. If you wanna go the other way. You can find [00:05:00] parts that are the actual electronic kind of boards themselves, if you were gonna install this, let's say you were building your own drone and you wanted to have this functionality plugged in, or you're a manufacturer.

There are companies that make. the boards and the chips with connectors and antennas to install inside of the drones. that would work. So Drone tag, that same company I mentioned before, they have something called Drone Tag, d r i that's a broadcast module that can directly integrate into the, I believe it integrates to the flight controller of the drone.

they're really small. It's like the size of a size of a quarter. and those are relatively inexpensive. It's like 45 euros, like 55 bucks, and they're, and they're available now. You can get it in five to seven days, but, you have to do some, some rigging, right? you have to get the pins and know how to get the right connectors to connect it to your flight controller on your drone.

And so if you buy, if you have like a Mavic Pro, right, you're not gonna bust that thing open and try to figure out how to connect this, computer chip to your, to your drone. Um, so it's really not a super great [00:06:00] option for people who are, maybe not. Electronically inclined or don't really wanna go busting open their older drones.

another one I found is from Horizon Hobby. So they work a lot with people who are building sort of, like RC plane category type of drones, they've got a module for, $69 at least. it's encased. it's got its own little, kind of compartment.

Also very small, but you still have to find the right, connectors and pins to. Get that hooked up to the flight controller of the drone. So again, that was like, you know, 70, so fairly expensive. And then last is flight test, F L I T E, flight test. You guys might be familiar with pretty large. Following on YouTube and stuff, they're big on, drones, hobby, aircraft.

So a lot of, again, like fixed wing, hobby airplanes. they have again, like a whole, like a little chip board that has all the right broadcasting equipment in it. They partnered with another electronics company to do that. So they should have those and you should be able to buy from them. But again, you need to know how to integrate that into the drone you shelf. So long story short, for the regular person who wants to just slap a module on [00:07:00] top of their drone and plug a cable in, there are no options that are in in stock right now.

And when they do come back in stock, they're gonna be two to $300 and it's looking like October is the earliest that you can get your hands on. one of those sort of plug and play remote ID modules.

John Dickow: And you said the plug and play, is it, I mean, is it really that simple plug and play? how exactly are you plugging in?

See one of those modules that are, that are more expensive, that are back ordered,

David Young: Sure. So most, newer drones have some type of data port on them. So a U Ss b c plug, similar to like what you'd see on the side of a laptop, right? They'll have like a little cover. It'll open up.

You'll see that U S B C port, and you can literally plug a cable in there. So for instance, a lot of drones will have some on a little bit of onboard memory space. Let's say your memory card fills up and you need to take. Five more pictures, right? You can switch over to the internal storage and you can take those photos, ways you can get that data is you can either download it onto like your device that you have connected, or you can literally plug your drone straight into your computer with like a U S B [00:08:00] C cable.

You plug one into the drone, one into your computer, and then you can kind of access the storage on the drone that way. So it's able to transmit data back and forth through that cable. So similarly, you would use that port and you would have like this little tiny box, you know, it's, I don't know about, yay big.

You put some double-sided tape on it, stick it to the top of your drone, and then have a small cable, one plugs into your drone web, plugs it into this module, transmitter. And that's how it's able to, to broadcast out. 'cause it's getting the data from the drone, the telemetry data, and the other information that it needs, and it's broadcasting it out in that module.

Oh, interesting. And it's gotta

John Dickow: be obviously light enough to where it's not affecting the, performance of the

David Young: drone at all. Yeah, these are pretty, small. Like they're all, the ones I've seen are very small, very light. Imagine it's like a very, very small electronics board, with a little plastic case on it.

So, shouldn't affect the flight of the drones too much. Okay.

John Dickow: Well, David, thank you so much. that's the answer to your question. When it comes to retrofit an existing drone to meet these upcoming remote ID requirements, you have your simpler options that are a little bit more [00:09:00] expensive, and unfortunately they're on back order.

Or if you got a little bit more knowhow when it comes to the, electrical setup, the, internals of your drone, you can probably find a little cheaper option with a little bit, uh, more

David Young: manual work. and lemme clarify too, you know, earlier in the podcast I was saying flight controller, I don't wanna be, people can be confused thinking it's the controller that they're holding in their hands.

So inside, if you're, if you're not as familiar with drones inside of the drone, there's something called a flight controller, and it's sort of the brains. Of the, the drone knowing, hey, I'm gonna send a signal over here to have that propeller speed up. It controls like the electronic speed controllers for each motor and kind of integrates with the G P s and all that stuff.

So it's sort of the, main functioning area, for the drone, it's called the flight controller, helps control the flight. And so that's why it would be plugged in there to help, you know, give the information to the broadcast module to send out. so earlier when I said you have to take these, electronics, Chips and boards and plug 'em into the flight controller.

It's not the controller you're holding while you're operating the drone. It's the, internal flight controller to the drone. Just to clarify there. Gotcha. Well, [00:10:00] thank you

John Dickow: for that and thank you for coming on, again and, uh, explaining this pretty important topic. this is coming up soon.

This is important for people

David Young: to know. So I would just say if I was gonna give tips, do your best to be compliant. Um, if you've got an older drone, it's just best to, be compliant and when you have the ability to order one later on, go for it. At that point, personally I wouldn't sweat it too hard in the meantime 'cause I don't think they're gonna be enforcing it on people who can't even order the parts.

but later when it becomes more prevalent and widely available, that's when I think you need to start worrying about it more. A little grace

John Dickow: period would be nice. David, thanks for coming on. Really

David Young: appreciate it. Yeah, thanks John.

John Dickow: Hey, and in the meantime you can submit your own drone questions and we'll find the answer to them.

You can go ahead and submit something over Y dqa.io. We'll see your question there. Or if you're part of the Drone Launch Connect community. go ahead, type in your question there. We'll see it. We'll find the answer. In the meantime, we'll see you in the sky.