Forty miles southeast of Syracuse University, students and faculty members at Colgate University were able to — until recently — check out drones from the university’s Case Library.

They were only required to pass a training program, find a partner for spotting and have a research purpose, Kevin Lynch, Colgate’s former chief information officer, told The Chronicle of Higher Education in October 2014.

But after the Federal Aviation Administration announced new regulations last month requiring all drones weighing between 0.55 and 55 pounds be registered with the federal government, Colgate decided to “rethink” its drone policy this semester, said Jeff Nugent, Colgate’s interim CEO for academic technologies, in an email.

The “drone loan” program was a unique system that gained Colgate national recognition. Its current state of uncertainty, however, is indicative of a larger trend on college campuses. In 2015, schools such as the University of Arkansas, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison all enacted policies banning or restricting the uses of drones on their campuses, primarily for safety purposes.

SU will likely soon be joining them. There is no official policy regarding drone use at SU, but a set of rules is currently being drafted by the Office of the University General Counsel. Officials say the policy will likely include a ban on the recreational use of drones and heavy regulations on drone use for research and academic purposes.

In the meantime, the Department of Public Safety has already begun consulting the FAA’s community-based safety guidelines and “common sense” measures to monitor drone use on campus, said DPS Chief Law Enforcement Officer Tony Callisto. But some at the university question whether SU is doing too much to restrict drone use.

 

In addition to banning drones for recreational use, Callisto said SU’s policy is likely to require students and faculty members using drones for research and academic purposes to have been granted by the FAA a Section 333 exemption, which authorizes drone use for non-recreational purposes.

As of Jan. 19, the FAA had granted 3,086 exemptions, according to its website. A number of universities, including the University of Michigan and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University (an SU peer institution), are among those that have applied for and been granted exemptions, but SU is not one.

Callisto added that students and faculty at SU will also need to have liability insurance for their drone.

“The concern is that one of these things come out of the sky and actually ends up hurting a university community member,” Callisto said.

If a student or faculty member has both a Section 333 exemption and liability insurance, they will need to notify the State University of New York Upstate Medical University prior to flying the drone. That is because Upstate has a helipad, and federal law requires drones to not be flown within five miles of manned aircraft, Callisto said. The student or faculty member will also need to notify Risk Management and provide the purpose for flying the drone and the times the drone will be in the air.

Callisto said DPS is already enforcing federal guidelines, which include a suggestion that drones be flown “a sufficient distance from populated areas.”

That presents a problem specifically for college campuses, which are generally crowded places, said SU mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Amit Sanyal, who researches the guidance, navigation and control of unmanned aircrafts such as drones.

Sanyal said flying drones on SU’s campus would come with serious safety concerns. A drone’s propellers, for example, could cut off someone’s finger, he said.

Arland Whitfield, who graduated from SU in December and founded The Skyworks Project, a student organization at SU that focuses on drone research, said he understands those safety concerns. But he added that the university’s “heavy-handed approach is not the correct way” to monitor drone use.

He said most students can’t afford to pay insurance premiums and don’t have the means to file for a Section 333 exemption.

“Syracuse University prides itself on innovation and being cutting-edge,” he said. “… And this seems very against Syracuse University and what they preach. … (Drones) are new technology. It’s highly experimental. There are definite dangers to that, but college campuses are the place where this stuff gets figured out.”

Kyle Foley, a sophomore computer science and engineering major who took over for Whitfield as president of Skyworks, called it “ridiculous” that students should be expected to have an exemption and insurance, especially since those in The Skyworks Project don’t get paid.

He said he is currently looking into options for insurance, but even a best-case scenario would mean only one or two students getting insured.

“The more people you get insured, the more your premiums will be,” Foley said. “So for a whole group of people that wants to fly drones on campus, it’s not going to happen.”

Foley added that he hopes SU will consider helping Skyworks and putting the organization on the university’s own liability insurance.

Foley also said he’d like to see a system in which students could register their drones with DPS and take a test to become certified to fly — similar to the former system at Colgate — without needing insurance. He added that drones “can be extremely safe when flown with a competent pilot.”

But unless the university’s policy is unexpectedly lenient when finished, Foley and the rest of the members of The Skyworks Project will be limited to flying drones off campus. Foley said they now typically just fly at Thornden Park.

It is unclear when the final version of the policy will be finished. Callisto said he’s seen a first draft but added that the process is “very comprehensive” and he is not sure of an approximate timeline.

 

Published on January 20, 2016 at 11:24 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu