American Robotics receives FAA exemption for commercial drones

American Robotics, a subsidiary of Ondas Holdings, announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued the company a new exemption that removes conditions and limitations that restricted commercial operations from its previous exemption. The company received a Part 107 Waiver for expanded Automated Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) flights.

American Robotics was the first company to receive FAA approval to operate automated drones without humans on-site in 2021. This latest exemption is an amendment to that waiver, which originally restricted operations to research and development, crew training and market surveys. Now, the company has the full authority to operate its autonomous Scout System drone commercially without limitations. 

“American Robotics believes that autonomy, safety, and government approval are the bedrocks of a scalable commercial drone business, and we continue to execute on this mission with additional approvals from the FAA,” Reese Mozer, co-founder and CEO of American Robotics, said. “This achievement is not only a milestone for our company and our customers, but it’s also a signal that the commercial drone industry is progressing in the United States, an achievement that American Robotics is honored to be leading.”

The Scout System includes Scout, a fully-autonomous drone, ScoutBase, a weatherproof charging and edge computing station and ScoutView, fleet management and analytics software. Scout is intended for industrial, agricultural, and defense markets. Once the system is installed, Scout will autonomously run missions to collect, process and analyze data.

The FAA gave the waiver allowing the company unlimited commercial operations following positive results in research and development, crew training and market surveys. It was officially granted on August 19, 2022. 

American Robotics announced in July 2022 that it had signed a term sheet to acquire Airobotics, an Israeli developer of autonomous unmanned aircraft systems. The merger is expected to close before the end of 2022. 

The acquisition is intended to accelerate the company’s technical development and regulatory roadmap and expand the breadth of applications, use cases and vertical AR targets. Combining American Robotics and Airobotics also means bringing together leading engineering and aviation talent and two world-class technology platforms.  

American Robotics was acquired by Ondas Holdings in May 2021 for $70.6 million. The company recently added seven additional sites of operation approved by the FAA for its automated BVLOS technology.