The new law will allow working in conditions that were previously illegal. One operational scenario that has been most needed is flying drones in urban areas or over crowds of people, and this will be possible with a few requirements. One of them, the one that drives most operators crazy, is that the drone has an impact energy absorption system (airbag or parachute). The problem with this is that AESA has not yet decided on the specifications that these devices will need. Logically, it is about introducing a new element for improvement aviation security in the use of drones, but in this case the indications for use are not very clear. The subject seems delicate and following the rules can be costly. We will comment on the current situation and how DronProfessional.com is handling it
A parachute is a good item to minimize damage in case of accidental drops of the drone. They help minimize damage to aircraft, cameras and LiPo batteries. The latter can become dangerous, as they can cause a fire when damaged. Of course, we are not forgetting the damage on the ground to people and their property that a damaged drone can cause when it falls, which can also be serious.
As for regulatory acts at the international level, it must be said that they are at the stage of maturation. In Spain at this time there are basic regulations with a level of specification that is still insufficient. New legislation on the matter is expected to appear soon, but it is not clear that this time everything is perfectly settled on the matter, and that lawmakers may simply choose to continue to impose restrictions on use.
In other words, we don’t have full regulation yet. This rule may be adopted after a long period of successive approximation of the right to reach a final, optimal and complete legal text, but it does not prevent manufacturers from selling these unapproved elements, or fans cannot safely build and use their own parachutes under certain conditions: where their use is not is binding and where they cannot cause harm to third parties.
Legal considerations
The first thing to note is that in this matter it is advisable to follow the current regulations and that there is a royal decree published in «BOE» no. 316 of December 29, 2017. Royal Decree 1036/2017 of 15 December regulating the civil use of remotely piloted aircraft and amending Royal Decree 552/2014 of 27 June.
Regarding the use of parachutes, we advise you to read the following articles:
Article 21. Conditions for the use of airspace for the performance of specialized air operations by remotely piloted aircraft that do not have an airworthiness certificate.
Article 22. General conditions for the use of airspace for the performance of specialized air operations by remotely piloted aircraft that have a certificate of airworthiness.
Article 23. General conditions for the use of airspace for experimental flights.
Article 23 bis. Rules of flying remotely controlled aircraft.
Article 23b. Terms of use of airspace.
Article 23c. Equipment requirements.
Note that this term does not appear anywhere in this new law parachutebut in Article 23c in (b) yes, the following is mentioned:
b) Safe flight termination system. In the case of operation in agglomerations of buildings in cities, towns or settlements or gatherings of people in the open air, it will be provided with a device for limiting the impact energy.
In other words, the specifications that these shock-limitation devices would have to meet in order to use drones on crowds of people were not specified, nor what type they would be, although it is clear that parachutes could be one of them.
What can we do to get a parachute that meets future standards?
Clearly, there are high expectations in the sector to find out the answer to this question, as for many companies the opportunity to break into a previously forbidden market and on the eve of regulation is very sweet. It would make it possible to be the first to offer certain types of services and get a good portfolio of clients, but there is simply no answer to this question.
At the time of writing, there is no manufacturer that offers approved parachutes, and in Spain the Ministry of Development does not provide a telephone number to contact any department that deals with these matters.
The opacity is complete at this point. Behind this opacity there may be logical reasons for caution, as the liability of using these elements can be very high.
Be that as it may, opacity is always a risk because it can encourage the use of privileged information that reaches some producers before others, but I think there is also a great fear of doing something wrong.
At what minimum height can drones with a parachute system fly?
All parachutes take a significant amount of time to fully deploy, and the longer they take, the more their fall rate increases and the more drag they must withstand when the parachute deploys. For this reason, the cables, parachute anchors and attachment points of drones can withstand very heavy loads, equivalent to several times the weight of the drone itself.
The safe altitude at which we should fly is higher for heavy drones and large parachutes, as a large parachute will take longer to deploy.
To speed up the opening of the parachute and for greater safety, very sophisticated ejection systems are needed, which expand the parachute more efficiently and quickly. Unfortunately, after studying the possibilities that exist in the market, these systems seem to be suitable only for certain drones of a certain size and weight, since their complexity does not favor their miniaturization.
There are some really complete and sophisticated drone parachutes on the market, but the ones we’ve seen in this category have been used on fairly large and heavy drones. S900 I S1000.
One such parachute system with a complex ejection system will be System oldarachoids with DJI «safe fall» (watch the video) for the S1000 or S900 multicopter and controller A2. On video it shows even in the details how to fold a parachuteYoyou give and many details of its construction can be appreciated. It looks like a very good system, but not suitable for use on small drones.
There is another parachute in the same line, also fully finished and with a complex parachute opening system. In particular, I mean the parachute Safeaire companies ParaZero. This parachute is available in more diameters, so it can be useful for drones of different weights. The video describes quite well how it works and how it deploys very quickly to prevent the drone from falling.
Our professional interest is in the use of parachutes in drones
We talk about all this without complexes, because DronProfessional.com is not a manufacturer of anything and we are not going to sell parachutes. DronProfessional.com’s business is to create audiovisual products with and without drones, but like many of our competitors, we’d like to get the word out as soon as possible.
The lack of this information for this technology and the fact that we do not intend to manufacture or sell parachutes does not mean that we are not interested in doing something Technological innovations for our own purposes.
For this reason, we purchased some very simple commercial parachutes to familiarize ourselves with these issues. In particular, we purchased a couple of models from a Spanish manufacturer: Parachutes S3.
I got to the manufacturer’s page because I saw that the store DJI Store suggested to them but they couldn’t offer me too many specifications. The manufacturer also did not provide too much information. It also offered no recommendations for use. For example, usage guidelines, such as tips on how to reassemble the servo hook after firing, or how to fold the parachute, etc.
In reality, this is more of a DIY kit and not very suitable for professional use. Relying on a simple parachute system for an expensive drone is not a good idea, but we thought it would be fun to get something better and more homologated if possible, but we thought it would be fun to experiment a bit with these tight parachutes beforehand .
We also buy other materials online to test and learn about all the problems that arise after using the drone parachute. We are thinking of creating an electronic actuator for the Servo shot that activates the parachute spring and will be based on a chip. Arduino ProMini (the tests are very promising).
By now, we have done enough research to understand the complexity of creating good regulation and a good safety system for parachute-based drones. We will talk about all this in the next posts.
A little preview of our parachute tests
We bought a s3 full set phantom (for Phantom 4) as well as another set for inspire2 both from S3 Parachutes. Both are servo driven but without their own ejector controller.
The first test was to remove the parachute from the ejection container and release it by hand with a small 1/4 liter bottle of water tied to the parachute and we did this from 6.5 meters to see if it had time to open .
The first test consisted of:
- Remove the parachute from the ejection canister.
- Tie it to a 350 gram ballast. (plastic water bottle).
- Release it by hand from a height of 6.5 meters to see if it has time to open.
The parachute reached the ground in a half-open state and did not have time to stop the fall. The boat with the water hit the ground at a considerable speed and was instantly torn apart by the force of the impact. We will do the above test next and after seeing what we saw we will continue to use the ballast instead of the drone.
PS (April 10, 2018):
You may be interested in a few articles: Parachute Ejection Controller with Arduino for Drones who design and build a parachute ejection controller for drones. This is a project called CEPAD that will be developed through several articles. Such a controller registers a fall thanks to a sensor. This whole drone technology is fairly new, and we see this type of controller as a very promising approach.
PS (September 10, 2018):
About him the parachute is complicated S3 Parachutes has a video recommending a method to deploy it in the air without any problems in a reasonable amount of time.
parachute for drones how to fold…
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