Part 107 governs commercial small unmanned aircraft operation in the United States — pilot certification, operating limits, and the waiver and authorization process for flying beyond them. Part 89, the Remote ID rule, requires most drones to broadcast their identity, position and control-station location while in flight.
FAA Part 107 and Remote ID
Statute United States
Remote ID is the most interesting rule in robotics for anyone who studies interfaces, because it does something almost no other safety regime does: it requires a machine-readable emission rather than a document. An aircraft must continuously broadcast who it is and where it is, in a defined format, to anyone listening.
- Broadcast identity and position - Serial or session ID, location, altitude, velocity and control-station position, over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
- LAANC authorization - Near-real-time airspace authorization delivered through approved API providers rather than by paperwork.
- Waivers for extended operations - Beyond-visual-line-of-sight and other operations run through a defined application process.
- An API-shaped ecosystem - LAANC created a market for airspace-authorization providers that had to integrate programmatically.
The State of Robotics & Autonomous Systems APIs finds this the clearest natural experiment in that market. Where the rule demands data a machine can read, the data appears: the drone and airspace segment produced the market’s most visible cluster of real interfaces, and the FAA itself scores 57.1 — ahead of all but three companies in the industry it regulates. Everywhere else in robotics the obligation is a technical file, and technical files do not create APIs.
Referenced in API Evangelist papers
This regulation shows up in my published research. These reports read the machine-readable evidence provider by provider — and put this regulation in the context of a real sector.
The State of Robotics & Autonomous Systems APIs
The one obligation in robotics demanding a machine-readable EMISSION rather than a document — and the segment around it produced the market's clearest cluster of real interfaces.
