Drone Standards and Best Practices

These standards are guidelines for implementing UAS operations internally or hiring professional services providers. If you are purchasing commercial UAS services, using data from commercial UAS operations, or using UAS internally, these Standards should be used to ensure compliance with industry standards. In order to reduce your businesses’ liability risk, improve safety and support professionalism, you should require all UAS operations, either hired as third parties or deployed internally, to demonstrate and conform with these Standards.

The Importance of standards. Standards provide people and organizations with a basis for mutual understanding and are used as tools to facilitate communication, measurement, commerce, and manufacturing. Standards are everywhere and play an important role in the economy, by facilitating business interaction. The pictures, video, and data captured from Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have become a highly valuable commercial tool for many industries. Tasks performed with UAS can provide a significant return on investment, with fewer risks associated with the UAS operation than previous methods used to perform the same tasks. In order for the commercial UAS market to continue its growth, it is imperative that best practices are documented and followed. Best practices will eventually become industry standards and will not only increase professionalism but encourage public acceptance of UAS operations.

This Standard is designed to provide any Commercial Drone Operations intelligent business practices fundamental to operate a Drone Service operation or business and to provide quality services and value to their clients. While this Standard represents the input of numerous experts with countless hours of experience and meeting with IT businesses to learn about them, the outcome will be dependent on execution and a number of market-specific and economic factors beyond the scope of this standard. Only with honest self-reflection can a business effectively evaluate itself against this checklist. Throughout that process, the company and its management team can embrace incremental improvements, focus on establishing and meeting the ever-increasing expectations of their clients, and create a highly professional environment for employees. The CompTIA Standard for Commercial Drone Operations provides intelligent business practices for the core operational, management, and delivery functions of a UAS services firm. Those functions have been categorized as follows:

1. Risk Mitigation & Safety
2. Laws, Regulations, & Rules
3. UAS Service & Flight Operations
4. Business Generation
5. Data Security and Protection
6. UAS Role Descriptions
7. Training Company Guidelines

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