China tops 180,000 drones registered under real names

More than 180,000 civilian drones have been registered under real names and over 24,000 civil unmanned aircraft operator certificates had been issued by Thursday, Chinanews.com reported, citing data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

A man operates an unmanned aerial vehicle in Henan on November 21, 2017. [Photo: IC]

Civil aviation has occasionally been interrupted by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones. Last year, interruptions increased, with the peak falling on May 19, causing the cancellation and delay of many flights.

Thanks to targeted measures adopted by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the country's top aviation regulator, incidents disrupting air travel have become much less since then.

Among the introduced measures are the requirement of real name registration, improvement of UAV operator management, and published data of clearance protection zones of 173 civil transportation airports.

It is expected that the annual growth of the industrial-grade UAV market will be kept at over 30 percent between 2017 and 2021. UAVs have great potential to replace manned aerial vehicles in areas such as general aviation and cargo aviation.