They can do it already: deliver pizzas and medicines, inspect windows for cleanliness, monitor crowds. And all that autonomously, without a human driver. But how do you ensure that drones comply with laws and regulations? Professor of Private Law and technology expert Gijs van Dijck translates legal rules such that drones can understand and implement them. "For the time being, I don’t envisage an airspace full of swarms of drones."
Gijs van Dijck is in teacher mode. Do I know what the drone’s natural enemy is? No, I say-I didn’t realise it has enemies. Tech haters, perhaps, or activist opponents? People who fear it will land on their heads? Wrong. The correct answer is breeding birds; they tend to mistake drones for birds of prey and go on the attack. "The pilot then extracts the drone from the area," Van Dijck explains. "You don’t want to kill birds, nor do you want to damage the drone."
This was an unexpected discovery during a series of test flights at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, carried out by companies and researchers such as Van Dijck. The drones operated independently; instead of a human pilot giving commands, the driving was done by software. Some drones checked whether windows were due for a wash, others experimented with pizza delivery and the detection of unauthorised persons. "The aim was to see whether the infrastructure works and whether it’s possible to make a business case that people want to invest in," Van Dijck says. The Eindhoven trials kicked off a series of demonstrations in five European cities, in which drones will perform tasks like observing crowds and transporting medicines.
Gijs van Dijck is professor of Private Law at Maastricht University’s Faculty of Law, director of the Maastricht Law and Tech Lab and a researcher at the Brightlands Institute for Smart Society. He integrates legal, empirical and computational methods to better describe, understand, apply and evaluate the law.
Fly safely
But what does all this have to do with the law? "Somebody has to determine, or at least check, what they are and aren’t allowed to do." This is especially difficult during flight, he explains. "Legal rules are often formulated vaguely. But ’fly safely’ is of no use to a drone. It wants to know whether it should turn right or left. For us, the challenge is to ensure that rules are passed on to the drone in a way that retains the public values embedded in those rules." He refers to the ethical, social and legal sides of new technologies. "Our role is to bring in this mindset and perspective, not after the fact, but from the development stage."
Our research group translates laws and regulations in such a way that drones can read, interpret and execute them. They have to be able to understand legal rules and comply automatically.
Liability
What a drone may or may not do is largely regulated in what Van Dijck describes as drone-specific legislation. These are rules that apply throughout Europe, and regulate not only technical specifications (weight, speed, wingspan) but also the actual flying of the drone. Hobbyists need a kind of driver’s license, and not all types of drones are allowed to fly everywhere. "You’re not going to get permission during an André Rieu concert on the Vrijthof." At some of the testing locations, the requirements are even more demanding; the High Tech Campus Eindhoven is located near an airport and military base. And at the demonstration in Zaragoza, drones will fly above a large crowd. "The organisers are obliged to inventory the hazards and mitigate them wherever possible. Sometimes you also have to ask permission to launch and announce it when you do."
Other risks are covered by generic legislation and regulations. For example, various liability laws apply to drone use, although open questions remain. Who is responsible if a pizza-or the drone itself-falls on someone’s head? "In the case of an independent drone, this is a thorny issue. Is the operator or the client liable? Or both?" Liability also exists for movable assets, but aircraft are excluded. Is the drone an unmanned aircraft? "We try to interpret and answer these kinds of questions from a legal perspective."
