We talk quite a bit about the continual state of flux of the commercial unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry on this blog. Enterprising companies are eager to take advantage of the opportunities at their fingertips, but everyone has a stake in ensuring that drone flight regulations evolve so that the skies are as safe as ever.

Drones continue to rise in popularity, for both commercial and private industry. Research firm Markets on Markets predicts that the global drone industry will grow to reach $5.6 billion by 2020. That’s a potential for quite a few drones in the shared airspace.

Drones, aka unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), are becoming an asset to public safety. As the number of drones in our skies increases, the industry has faced concerns about safety. But UAS are actually very safe to operate and can even improve public safety, especially with the help of operational intelligence (OI) technology to improve situational awareness in shared airspace.