Drone safety systems company ParaZero Israel Ltd has announced that Botlink, a North Dakota UAS operator, has received the first FAA waiver for flight over people with a parachute system.

Under the waiver, Botlink will use ParaZero’s SafeAir System on a DJI Phantom 4 to perform missions for local law enforcement. Additionally, the company will use the waiver to generate media content as part of the North Dakota Department of Transportation's efforts under the UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP).

“We spent many months developing and testing our parachute systems. The data that was collected from these tests was provided to the FAA and is a critical component of the waiver application.” explains Avi Lozowick, Director of Policy and Strategy at ParaZero.

“We had to prove to the FAA that the descent rate was consistently low enough to provide an acceptable impact energy and that the system will work properly in all types of failure scenarios.”

The first flights using the waiver were conducted over the weekend during the tailgating event before the North Dakota State University football game at the FargoDome in North Dakota. The UAS performed several flights over the crowds gathered in the stadium’s parking lots, providing local law enforcement and media companies with “important, real-time footage.”

The ParaZero UAS safety system being used for the operations under this waiver includes a fully autonomous triggering system that deploys quickly and reliably without dependence on the operator’s response time. According to ParaZero Israel, once the parachute deploys, the system stops the spinning rotors to avoid entanglement with the parachute cords and reduces the risk of laceration injuries to people on the ground.

“Until today, the handful of existing waivers for flight over people have either been for closed-set operations or for very lightweight and sometimes frangible UAS. This waiver opens the gates for safe flight over people with larger, more advanced UAS that can carry more sophisticated payloads and cameras,” comments Eden Attias, ParaZero’s CEO.

“This is a major step towards reaching our goal. We hope to learn from this process together with the FAA and are eager to see additional waivers for flight over people in the future.”