PCB007 Magazine

PCB-Dec2015

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December 2015 • The PCB Magazine 37 IS IPC THE PAST OR THE FUTURE OF OUR INDUSTRY? Figure 3: cBS coverage of drone interference in Southern california fires in July 2015. Figure 4: Gopro equipped hobby drone. A great example of this is shown by the is- sue of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV or drone) management. In July 2015, NASA held the Un- manned Aerial Systems (UAS) Traffic Manage- ment Convention at NASA Ames Research Cen- ter at Moffett Field, California to discuss drone regulation, which has until now been entirely ungoverned. This conference came on the heels of at least five incidents where aircraft in South- ern California fighting raging wildfires amidst an unprecedented drought were grounded due to interference from civilian piloted drones, re- sulting in blazes that grew unchecked (Figure 3). The conference was attended by Jamie Boone and Doug Johnson, director of govern- ment affairs and VP of policy for CEA, respec- tively. As they explained, the consumer drone market was estimated at about $600M in 2014. It is anticipated that this market could grow by many billions of dollars annually in the next half decade. On behalf of their member com- panies, "CEA is advocating collaborative and consumer driven policy and minimizing the de- fault Airforce and FAA management of drones," explained Johnson. A task force, charged with recommending policy for drone tracking and registration for vehicles larger than nine ounc- es, has been launched on Oct 29, 2015 with representatives from the FAA, the U.S. Depart- ment of Transportation and NASA. It includes industry influencers such as Earl Lawrence, FAA director of Unmanned Aerial Systems, Sean Cassidy and Ben Gielow of Amazon, and Dave Vos of GoogleX, as well as representatives from Walmart, GoPro, Best Buy, CEA and others. An- thony Fox, secretary of transportation, stated in early November that drone registrations would be in place by year end (a potentially optimistic timeline according to task force members). The task force is comprised entirely of com- mercial interests, and consequently, much of CEA's constituency would prefer to minimize government oversight of UAV technology and the electronics which drive them, allowing poli- cies on both the technology going into UAVs and regulation of their usage to be managed by the manufacturers and users. Of course, there is a significant difference when talking about drone management, responsibility and safety for a consumer envisioning a $200 Costco pur- chase with a GoPro attachment (Figure 4) and the type of systems many IPC member com- panies build. IPC member companies who have worked on General Atomics programs are uniquely positioned to understand the mag- nitude of the national security risk if the tech- nology were to fall into the wrong hands. It is a very sobering comparison to look down the nose of a fully weaponized MQ-9 Reaper drone that can carry a payload of 3800 pounds of la- ser guided bombs and hellfire missiles, climb to 50,000 feet and travel at speeds of 300 mph (Figure 5). For these reasons, IPC has stepped up its work with government involvement and its in- fluence on Washington. IPC's government rela- tions committee (IPC GRC), currently chaired by Bhawnesh Mathur of Creation Technologies (Figure 6), has undergone a significant transfor- mation in recent years. In 2014, IPC GRC was puTTing iT All TogeTher

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