France to use helicopters, drones to enforce virus restrictions

PARIS, France — France is calling up helicopters and drones to boost the government's attempts to keep people in their homes, police officials said Saturday.

"The helicopters will give us a larger vision and a panoramic view of the situation in real time to help guide the patrols on the ground," a national gendarmerie source said.

One helicopter was already in use on Saturday, hovering above major Paris parks to ensure that confinement rules were respected.


Later Saturday, a French navy helicopter-carrier was on the way to Toulon on the south coast of France to evacuate coronavirus patients from the Mediterranean island of Corsica to hospitals in nearby Marseille.

And on Saturday evening, a French navy helicopter-carrier was on the way to Toulon from where the vessel's helicopters will evacuate coronavirus patients from Corsica to Marseille.


Drones will also be used to help keep people confined, in particular to keep an eye on the banks of the Seine river.

However the head of the army health service (SSA) Marilyne Gygax-Genero told the Journal du Dimanche weekly: "We don't have unlimited means."

The French army has already been supporting the hard-pressed medical services in the northeast city of Mulhouse.

Inmates in several prisons meanwhile refused to return to their cells after exercise, the prison service said Saturday.

More than 9,000 infected

France has been in lockdown since midday on Tuesday, with excursions from the home limited to buying food, visiting the doctor, walking the dog or going for a solitary jog.

The measures came as the government mulled expanding the two-week home confinement imposed on all residents in a bid to brake the epidemic that has seen more than 14,000 infected with the virus in France, and 562 deaths.

No gatherings are allowed, and workers can only go to work if their employer does not provide an option for working from home.

People who venture outside need to print out and fill in a government form. They risk a 135-euro ($145) fine if they cannot show one.

Although a full curfew has not been imposed, the government has deployed 100,000 police to monitor people's movements and make sure people who are outside keep their distance.

250 million face masks

The French government's scientific council will on Monday make an announcement on the length and extent of the emergency measures, according to Health Minister Olivier Veran. 

To help contain the COVID-19 virus, 250 million protective face masks will become available 'progressively", the minister told a news conference.

There is currently a lack of masks, especially for health workers who are prone to catch and spread the disease.

Veran said the government was also seeking to multiply the coronavirus test kits available in order to increase testing once the restrictions on movement are lifted.

Businesses are suffering from the restrictions. Many have been told to close with only key businesses like supermarkets and pharmacies allowed to keep their doors open.

"Here we are still making the bread but we're not giving out the change," said one baker in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil.

Coins are laid out by denomination on the counter and customers take whatever is their due, in order not to spread the virus.

Ordinary citizens are also, increasingly, doing their bit to assuage the effects of the forced confinement.

A florist shop in the Sarthe region of western France is losing heavily as his stock of roses and tulips can't be preserved.

"Rather than throw them away we decided to send the flowers to hospitals throughout France to give a boost to the nursing staff," said the florist, Philippe Bigot. "It's our contribution".

Agence France-Presse

Wal-Mart eyes drone home deliveries

SAN FRANCISCO, United States—Wal-Mart is actively looking at the possibility of using drones to make deliveries to US customers, a spokesman said Monday, following the lead of Amazon and other retailers.

The retail behemoth has been testing the technology indoors “for several months” and on Monday made a request to US aviation authorities to do likewise outside.

In addition to deliveries, Wal-Mart wants to use the unmanned aircraft to keep a bird’s eye view on its warehouses or other facilities, or to convey purchases in-store to customers’ cars.

“This is part of our continuous efforts to drive efficiencies in our supply chain and to serve customers faster and better,” a spokesman told AFP.

“There is a Wal-Mart within five miles (eight kilometers) of 70 percent of the US population, so that creates interesting possibilities for serving customers with drone technologies.”

In March, the Federal Aviation Administration said it would allow online giant Amazon to carry out testing for its drone program.

The company hopes to develop a delivery system which would dispatch small packages in under 30 minutes.

Google is also keen on the idea and in August last year—a month after Amazon sought permission for drone test flights—said it was also trying out using drones to deliver items bought online.

source: business.inquirer.net

US proposes new rules regulating drone use

Washington–US aviation regulators unveiled sweeping new guidelines Sunday governing the use of small unmanned drones, proposing that the devices can only fly in daylight, must remain within users’ sightlines and cannot fly near manned aircraft.

The guidelines from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also recommend that drone operators obtain a special certificate to be renewed every two years and limits the speed of the drone to 100 miles (161 kilometers per hour). Users would have to be 17 years or older.

The devices would also be required to fly below 500 feet (150 meters) in altitude and would not be permitted near airports or other airspace without special permission.

The new guidelines would apply to drones, or unmanned aircraft systems, that are under 55 pounds (25 kilograms.)

The recreational use of drones has soared in popularity recently, but their use in the United States has remained largely unregulated.

President Barack Obama has called for more stringent rules on drone use after a “quadcopter” device crashed on White House grounds last month, prompting a security alert.

The FAA said the new rules sought to balance innovation with safety, and the agency’s administrator Michael Huerta called the proposed guidelines a milestone.

“We have tried to be flexible in writing these rules,” he said.

“We want to maintain today’s outstanding level of aviation safety without placing an undue regulatory burden on an emerging industry.”

The public now has 60 days to make comments on the rules, which the FAA said it will consider before drafting a final proposal.

Privacy concerns 

Also Sunday, the White House released a drones directive that sought to protect the privacy of citizens, prohibiting the illegal collection and dissemination of data by the devices.

A central pillar of the presidential memorandum is to ensure “the responsible use of this technology, strengthening privacy safeguards and ensuring full protection of civil liberties,” according to a White House statement.

Sharing or collecting information that would “discriminate against persons based upon their ethnicity, race, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity, in violation of law” would also be prohibited.

The White House said any new laws around drone use should ensure “protections and policies keep pace with developments.”

The US Center for Democracy and Technology welcomed the White House move, but warned drones “pose new and intrusive privacy problems” and urged lawmakers to do more to protect civil liberties.

“Congress still has a role to play in setting strong privacy and transparency standards for drone use,” the agency’s senior counsel Harley Geiger said.

Commercial use

The latest proposal from the FAA does not include the use of drones by delivery companies, such as Amazon, which has said it wants to use drones to deliver goods to customers.

Huerta said the agency was conducting separate research regarding drone use for those purposes.

“We have ongoing activities to address the questions of beyond visual line-of-site and we do want to receive comments from people with respect to how we should structure this going forward,” he said in a conference call Sunday.

“We also don’t consider and don’t contemplate in this a rule carrying packages outside of the aircraft itself,” he said, regarding using drones for delivery purposes.

The FAA said unmanned aircraft could be used for a variety of activities, including inspecting utility towers, antennas, bridges, power lines and pipelines; conducting academic research; supporting wildlife conservation; monitoring crops; and in search and rescue operations.

Several media organizations have also expressed interest in using drones to film and photograph aerial images.

Huerta said while drone use in these areas was valuable, the devices could also pose security risks if unregulated.

“We envision that this aircraft could be used for a wide variety of activities particularly those that might be considered dangerous,” Huerta said.

The FAA has been testing drone use at six sites across the country since late 2013.

Various US federal agencies regularly use drones, including to monitor wildfires, conduct scientific research, monitor borders and in military training.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Drone revolution draws near, but big obstacles remain

BOULEVARD, California – The drones are coming.

Not as flying deliverymen that bring diapers, books or soup cans to your home, a vision put forth by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to much fanfare a little more than a year ago.

Instead, drones will help spray crops, inspect high-voltage power lines and hover over movie sets to provide directors with new vantage points. They will also work for insurance companies, real estate agencies, ski resorts and dozens of other businesses.

Eventually.

For now, this all remains theoretical. Except for a few locations, U.S. airspace is closed to commercial drones. Regulators say the danger is too great, and they want to go slow easing unmanned aircraft into the already crowded skies.

Advocates of the young drone industry complain that the long wait is keeping them grounded. Big-money investors are generally staying away, waiting for clear government guidelines. And the blanket flight prohibition has prevented companies from experimenting and advancing the technology. That includes developing sophisticated collision-avoidance systems or finding ways for the aircraft to navigate without human help.

“Most of these drones have very limited safety features,” says Maryanna Saenko, an analyst with science and technology consultancy Lux Research. If one crashes, “it’s a four- or five-pound brick coming out of the sky.”

Most Americans associate drones with the military, which uses unmanned aircraft to survey battlefields and hunt terrorists. In a similar manner, businesses of all kinds envision using them to perform jobs that are too difficult or dangerous for humans.

If safety and regulatory obstacles can be overcome, within the next three years, drones and the companies that support them could generate $13.7 billion worth of economic activity in the U.S. and create 70,000 new jobs, according to the industry’s trade group, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

That’s just domestically. In less than a decade, as many as 32,000 commercial drones could be flying worldwide, according to aerospace consultancy Teal Group. Only a third will be in the US.

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to release guidelines soon about who can fly drones weighing less than 55 pounds and under what conditions. They might include the extremely stringent — and costly — requirement that operators have a pilot’s license.

That means some of the most ambitious drone ideas, like Amazon’s package-delivery system, will probably have to wait. First, drones will tackle the hard-to-do jobs, the dangerous industrial tasks, often in remote places.

The first adopters


To see the potential of drones, go to a plateau in the Southern California desert covered with cacti and brush. There, Teena Deering, a former Navy helicopter pilot who later taught drone warfare, is testing the idea of using unmanned aircraft to inspect power lines.

A generation ago, military pilots would retire and fly for airlines. Today, they are working on drones.

“It’s just the way of the future,” Deering says.

With a few quick movements of a wireless controller — the type used for model airplanes — Deering sends a 1-pound (450-gram) drone racing into the sky around a 165-foot (50-meter) tower. Live video streams back from the drone’s camera, showing her the condition of the lines.

Normally, the remote lines are inspected by helicopter, a difficult job that costs $1,200 an hour. But San Diego Gas and Electric thinks that drones might be a cheaper, faster way.

source: technology.inquirer.net