[Animats]

That's available. ADS-B receive only in a 6 gram package. A full ADS-B transponder in a 20 gram package.[1] Now your drone is visible to ATC and aircraft, and in turn, can see other aircraft, in areas where there's ground radar.

This is more for commercial operations in class B airspace, where you need to get permission from the controlling FAA tower. Real estate photography in a city or shooting a movie, for example.

This doesn't help with avoiding stationary objects; that's a separate problem and requires sensors. ADS-B just tells all the players in controlled airspace where the other players are.

[1] http://www.uavionix.com/products/ping2020/

[dbyte]

Yes I agree with you but you are point out the existance of low weight packages while I would say that cost is a more important constraint for drones. I guess users can argue with the idea of equipping their low-cost drone with an expensive certified ADS-B receiver. It won't be as cost effective as one may think.

Also one has to consider that the mode S transponder is using a 24bit identifier. While this has a lot of sense for modern civil aviation (there are not as many planes) the same cannot be guaranteed as soon as you have many more temporary users of your airspace (e.g. swarms of Amazon delivery drones). IMHO regulators should aim first to create an effective solution that works well for drones (e.g. allowing ATC to broadcast digital commands to guide drones if necessary, btw there is a similar effort already for commercial planes) and then find a smart way to integrate commercial and drone aviation systems.

Btw really nice product!