FCC Grants Itself Authority To Retroactively Ban Drones, DJI Neo 2 And L3 LiDAR Leak, Plus $300K Fireworks Fine

Photo credit: Pilot Institute

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Welcome to your weekly UAS news update, Halloween edition, where scary politicians create scary laws. I have three stories for you this week: The FCC votes on new powers, DJI drone and payload leaks, and a California homeowner facing a massive $300,000 fine based on—well, you’ll see—drone stuff.

FCC Votes to Grant Itself Retroactive Ban Authority

In a three-to-nothing vote, the FCC granted itself the authority to retroactively ban equipment from companies that are on its covered list.

This new rule was driven by Chinese communication equipment that, well, has not been behaving correctly. Rightfully so, they are talking about banning some of these. This closes two major loopholes.

• The first one is to prohibit the authorization of any new devices that contain components from a covered list company.
• The second one—this is the big one—it allows the FCC to revoke previously authorized equipment if national security concerns arise.

As I said, this was motivated by Huawei and other Chinese telecom equipment. Why does it really matter in the drone world? Well, because DJI and Autel could end up on the FCC covered list by the end of the year if an audit of their technology is not completed by the U.S. government.

Note that DJI is not currently on the FCC list. I’m repeating this because there are a lot of clickbait articles going on right now about this. It is clear that they are not on the FCC list yet, but if—when—they get added, then the FCC could have the authority to do whatever they just voted on.

There’s technically a notice of proposed rulemaking that is also coming up on this to follow, but as of this recording it is not public. We’ll keep you updated if we see more.

DJI Neo 2 Rumored Release and Specifications

Next up, DJI has a few rumored releases. The first one is the Neo 2, which is rumored to be released by the time you are watching this recording. It is not likely going to be available in the United States, but some notable upgrades include forward-facing LiDAR, two-axis gimbal, potentially a sensor upgrade, and the battery is reportedly offering 15% more capability, which would mean that the flight time would go up to around 19 minutes.

But that upgrade comes at a cost. It looks like, from leaked Australian pricing, the new battery would be $129, which is more than double the original $59 price tag.

One of the coolest new features that we see in here is a small detachable—what they call—a digital transceiver that allegedly provides OcuSync 4.0 connection, allowing the drone to be used with existing DJI remotes. Without it, you’d be limited to the short range of Wi-Fi connection like we’ve seen on some older drones. The good news here is that it seems to be compatible with the existing Goggles N3. So we’ll see what happens.

DJI Zenmuse L3 LiDAR Payload Teaser

The other rumor here is DJI is teasing a new payload for all surveyors and mappers out there. The company has announced that they might launch on November 4th at 7:00 a.m. Eastern what looks like to be a Zenmuse L3 LiDAR payload. The teaser is called “See Through Far and True,” which gives us some big clues here.

Photo credit: DJI Enterprise

“See through” likely refers to the point cloud’s ability to go through vegetation penetration, which probably would be improved. I’m guessing this is really critical for forestry and terrain mapping. The “far” part suggests maybe a longer detection range than the L2 has right now, which is 450 meters (1,476 feet). And then the “true” part would be possibly better accuracy. The L2 already has 4 centimeters (1.6 inches) vertically and 5 centimeters (2 inches) horizontally as far as accuracy, which is already pretty impressive.

So there are some leaked photos that show that the L3 payload is in a rugged Pelican-style case and it features that distinctive pink and purple colors that we see on the teaser video. This is the logical successor to the Zenmuse L2, which was launched in October of 2023. So we’re about due for a new upgrade—it’s two years later. That makes sense.

DJI has been a game changer in this space, obviously bringing the cost down from hundreds of thousands of dollars for LiDARs all the way down to what it is now, which is far more accessible. This new payload could complete the entire ecosystem upgrade that we’ve seen with the Matrice 400 platform, the DJI Terra 5.0 software update. So it’s going to be interesting to see whether it’s backward compatible with the M300 and the M350. Hopefully we can get our hands on one and test it out.

California Homeowner Faces $300,000 Fine From Drone Surveillance

The last story this week is a bit of a different story than we normally talk about. Typically we have the don’t-be-that-guy segment where people get fined extravagant amounts because they did something dumb. In this case, this is a homeowner in Stanton, California, that is facing a staggering $300,000 fine after a drone that was owned by the city allegedly recorded illegal fireworks being set off on his property on the Fourth of July.

The city claims that its drone documented approximately 300 explosions, and they’re fining him $1,000 for each of those. But the homeowner insists that he wasn’t home at the time of the event.

What makes this a little bit troubling is that there is a local what they call the social host ordinance that holds property owners responsible for any illegal firework on their property—whether or not they are present on the property at the time of the event.

In total, this city specifically has issued $929,000 in fines for 18 different homeowners for its drone surveillance program.

When someone asked them how can someone pay that six-figure fine, the mayor actually suggested that they could take out a loan. This approach seems to be designed far more for revenue generation than really for public safety, if you ask me, especially since the city keeps 35% of the fine. There seems to be a little bit of a motivation here.

The wildfire risk is obviously something that’s real, especially when it’s coming from illegal fireworks. But this level of enforcement feels a little bit excessive. In addition, I think using the drone here in order to enforce these fines makes it a lot harder for legitimate public safety agencies to gain the trust that we all need in this industry. So let us know what you think in the comments about this one. I’ve got opinions, let’s put it that way.

Upcoming Events

We’re going to be in Vegas, by the way, next week. We’re going to be at the Las Vegas drone meetup and we’re going to be teaching a few in-person courses on the Friday on select Part 107 topics and then also on photography and cinematography. So if you’re in the area, make sure you check it out. We’re going to put a link in the description to the event and I hope to see you there.

We’re going to be talking about all of these stories and then a few more on Postflight, which is our premium community show where we share our opinions and more. So have a great weekend. We’ll see you on Monday for the live and otherwise don’t be that guy. Fly safe.