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It turns out drones, typically used for military action in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, may soon be flying in the skies near you.
Law enforcement agencies want drones for air support when chasing criminals on foot or in a vehicle, utility companies believe the drones will provide invaluable help monitoring oil, gas and water pipelines and farmers think the drones will be useful and farmers are convinced drones will be the perfect way to spray their crops with pesticides.
"It's going to happen," said Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association. "Now it's about figuring out how to safely assimilate the technology into our national airspace."
That's the job of the Federal Aviation Administration, which plans to propose new rules for the use of small drones in January, a first step toward integration.
The agency has issued 266 active testing permits for civilian drone applications but hasn't permitted drones in national airspace on a wide scale out of concern that the pilotless craft don't have an adequate "detect, sense and avoid" technology to prevent midair collisions.
Other concerns include privacy - imagine a camera-equipped drone buzzing above your backyard pool party - and the creative ways in which criminals and terrorists might use the machines.
"By definition, small drones are easy to conceal and fly without getting a lot of attention," said John Villasenor, a UCLA professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation. "Bad guys know this."
The aerospace industry insists these concerns can be addressed. It also believes that the good guys - the nation's law enforcement agencies - are probably the biggest commercial market for domestic drones, at least initially.
Police departments in Texas, Florida and Minnesota have expressed interest in the technology's potential to spot runaway criminals on rooftops or to track them at night by using the robotic aircraft's heat-seeking cameras.
"Most Americans still see drone aircraft in the realm of science fiction," said Peter W. Singer, author of "Wired for War," a book about robotic warfare. "But the technology is here. And it isn't going away. It will increasingly play a role in our lives. The real question is: How do we deal with it?"
Drone maker AeroVironment Inc. of Monrovia Calif., the nation's biggest supplier of small drones to the military, has developed its first small helicopter drone that's designed specifically for law enforcement.
If FAA restrictions are eased, the company plans to shop it among the estimated 18,000 state and local police departments across the United States.
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