Censys Technologies, a leading provider of remote sensing solutions, announced that it has helped its customers operating commercial drones secure the difficult-to-obtain Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) waiver at a 100% approval rate for 2021 to date. As of November 2021, Censys Technologies had secured five approvals in 2021 alone â bringing the total number of approvals to eight. At press time, four waivers submitted by the company were under review.
FAA Part 107 regulations impose several restrictions on commercial drone pilots, including a requirement that they maintain a visual line of sight at all times with any drone they are operating, unless they have a waiver from the agency.
Obtaining the BVLOS waiver is challenging. The FAA has approved only 86 such waivers, and a drone industry publication called the process “complex, ambiguous and onerous.” To be approved, a waiver application must outline a detailed and narrow flight plan and document elements including detection technology, drone tracking, real-time manned aircraft data feeds, safety, and training. Only 1% of waiver applications are initially approved, according to one estimate.
Censys Technologies owes its success in securing waiver approvals to the firm’s ability to leverage industry expertise and advanced technology, helping to get clients’ aircraft in the sky quickly and efficiently.
“With our industry insight, our team has perfected the process of writing these waivers throughout the amendment process,” said Trevor Perrott, CEO of Censys Technologies. “We also have an advantage in that we manufacture drones ourselves. Technology like our Mobile Command Centers introduce human factors to boost safety protocols, which is important to include when drafting a waiver request, as they demonstrate the knowledge and expertise necessary to secure an approval.”
The Censys Technologies team also attributes their waiver application success to the company’s advanced drone technology. Its Sentaero BVLOS drones have been seamlessly equipped with onboard detect-and-avoid technology with both the forward-facing Electro-Optical sensor and an ADS-B receiver. That provides pilots with the opportunity to be ahead of the curve when it comes to in-flight airspace deconfliction. The Sentaero can detect both cooperative and uncooperative aircraft, a capability that is critical to the safety component of the BVLOS waiver.
In a recent ASTM Committee meeting, FAA officials publicly stated that these waivers are likely to stay for at least the next 4-5 years, making the waiver approval process even more important.
“It is our mission here at Censys Technologies to enable commercial BVLOS. With every waiver we write, we make strides towards more complex and expansive operations,” said CTO and Waiver Team Lead, John Lobdell.
“Our outstanding success with BVLOS approvals this year stems simply from practice. We now have a really deep understanding for what the FAA wants in an application from system specifications to mission details.”
For more information on Censys Technologies, please visit https://censystech.com/.
