An end-of-year report from dronelife.com—quoting data from Drone Industry Insights—states that global drone regulations are evolving rapidly as we turn the corner into 2022.

And, yes, this is a good thing.

“This is a very welcome development, given that the drone industry sees regulatory framework as an important driving factor,"
said DRONEII Editor Ed Alvarado.

Some highlights:

• United States. The FAA is on the cusp of defining rules for flight Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) after establishing the BVLOS ARC this year.  

• Brazil. The government is simplifying drone registration.

• China. Officials are publishing a new, risk-based regulation framework.

• Korea. Significant movement towards urban air mobility is underway, continuing the progress made this year with trial flights and the government committment to an early implementation of passenger VTOL aircraft.   

• Japan. Finalizing registration and BVLOS flight standards.

Everything points to progress towards global-drone integration, as well as an expansion of commercial drone operations.  

While these developments do not even begin to cover increasingly important topics such as certification, UTM-specific developments in various countries, or the evolution risk-assessment processes such as SORA, the latest drone regulations have taken crucial strides towards more BVLOS operations, operations over people, and operations at night.

We are rapidly approaching a time when most of the legislation necessary for large-scale drone operations will be in place.