Israeli firm gets FAA nod to fly automated drones anywhere in US

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted a nationwide waiver for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights to a drone-in-a-box solution provider for the first time ever.

The recipient of this waiver is Israel-based Percepto, whose autonomous inspection platform AIM was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Best Inventions of 2021. The Percepto system can now be operated remotely at qualifying sites across the US from day one.

The biggest beneficiaries of the FAA’s decision are expected to be electric utilities, oil and gas companies, solar power stations, and mining sites that use drones to detect infrastructure problems. They will no longer have to endure the long wait time it takes to secure site-specific BVLOS approvals from the FAA.

Koch Industries, which is both a client of Percepto and an investor in the company, says it’s looking forward to the possibilities this national BVLOS waiver presents. Tim Shanfelt, operations enablement leader…