The government is set to publish new regulations for civilian unmanned aircraft and help put an end to irregular flights, China Daily reported.
Ke Yubao, executive secretary-general of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of China, said on Monday, Nov. 30, that the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is soliciting suggestions and opinions after drafting a provisional regulation on the operation of light-duty civilian drones.
"The regulation will be published as soon as early December," Ke said.
According to Ke, the regulation will help close statutory loopholes in the management of unmanned aircraft and provide drone owners with more convenience.
"Currently, there are several CAAC regulations that govern the use of civilian drones, but most of them lack specific and practical rules," Ke said. "The new regulation will set clear rules on which flights are legal and which are not permitted."
Citing Ke, the report said that the regulation will ban the use of small drones in delivering packages to urban residents. The report added that drone-based delivery systems are now being developed and tested by online shopping service providers such as U.S. firm Amazon.
"This is because the detection and collision-avoidance systems on small drones are not good enough to avoid the dense building clusters and electric wires," Ke said. "A collision and crash will compromise the safety of people on the ground."
According to the report, the new regulation provides that a drone that weighs less than 25 kilograms and flies at an altitude lower than 150 meters are exempted from an airworthiness certification but will still need to register with the civil aviation authority.
Drones that weigh from 25 to 150 kg, however, will have to go through airworthiness certification before they are allowed to operate.
The new rules also require owners to submit a flight plan with all the flights performed by drones, before an aircraft takes off.
Nearly 90 percent of civilian drones on the Chinese mainland are lighter than 25 kg and have a ceiling of 150 m, an industry report recently released by the association showed.
Zhang Feng, board chairman of the association, said that there are about 20,000 drones on the mainland in use for civilian purposes. Businesses have greatly benefited from the use of drones, such as in agricultural pest control, environmental monitoring and geographic surveying, he added.