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Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly referred to as drones, are an emerging technology that has changed the way many industries conduct business. Precision agriculture is one industry that has consistently been predicted to be a major locus of innovation for UAS. However, this has not been the case globally. The agricultural aircraft sector in the United States is used as a case study here to consider different metrics to evaluate UAS adoption, including a proposed metric, the normalized UAS adoption index. In aggregate, UAS operators only make up 5% of the number of agricultural aircraft operators. However, the annual number of new UAS operators exceeded that of manned aircraft operators in 2022. When used on a state-by-state basis, the normalized UAS adoption index shows that there are regional differences in UAS adoption with western and eastern states having higher UAS adoption rates while central states have significantly lower UAS adoption rates. This has implications for UAS operators, manufacturers, and regulators as this industry continues to develop at a rapid pace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Commercial interest for unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) has seen a steady increase over the last decade. Nevertheless, UAS operations have remained almost exclusively military. This is mainly due to the lack of a regulatory framework that allows only limited public and civil UAS operations with usually crippling restrictions. Although efforts from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its partners are already underway to integrate UAS in the National Airspace System (NAS), the appropriate regulation will not be ready for several more years. In the meantime UAS developers need to be aware of the current operational restrictions, as well as make informed decisions on their research and development efforts so that their designs will be airworthy when the regulatory framework is in place. This paper aims to present an overview of current aviation regulation followed by an investigation of issues and factors that will affect future regulation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]