FAQs

FAA UAS Symposium is a series of full, interactive events taking place within a virtual platform. The Symposium team has taken the on-site experience and reimagined it in a digital world, allowing attendees to engage with keynote addresses, panel discussions, and workshops by FAA officials and UAS industry stakeholders from the comfort and safety of their homes. The program includes much of the content originally planned for the in-person event, as well as networking breaks throughout the agenda that will allow attendees to hold one-on-one online meetings with FAA executives and industry leaders to discuss policy and technology issues that are needed to enable expanded UAS operations.

The FAA and AUVSI considered postponing the event until Fall. However, the unpredictable nature of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) national health emergency and the potential for travel restrictions further complicated planning a fall event. Rather than postponing for a full year, the FAA and AUVSI made the decision for the health and safety of the unmanned aviation community to host the 5th Annual FAA UAS Symposium virtually instead of in-person in Baltimore.

Recognizing the value of this symposium to driving engagement between the commercial UAS industry and the FAA, the FAA UAS Symposium – Remotely Piloted Edition will address the important content already planned for this year’s program over a series of two Episodes.

Two distinct Episodes allow us to better target different segments of the UAS community and create affordable registration options for potential attendees with more limited interests. Each Episode will feature unique content. Learn more about the agenda for each Episode. 

We will be publishing a detailed agenda as it is finalized. Learn more about the agenda and confirmed presentations for each Episode.

The FAA UAS Symposium - Remotely Piloted Edition will take place in 2 “Episodes.” Episode I will take place July 8 – 9 and Episode II will take place August 18 – 19. All times listed on the agenda are in the Eastern Time Zone. Depending on your interest areas and schedule, you can register for both Episodes, for just one Episode, or even just a single day.

All times listed on the agenda are in the Eastern Time Zone.

While a webinar-style presentation may be part of a virtual event, a virtual event provides attendees with a variety of content options and opportunities for direct interaction with other participants.

A webinar is a topic-specific seminar or other presentation, usually between 30-90 minutes, that takes place on the Internet, allowing participants in different locations to see and hear the presenter(s), ask questions, and sometimes answer polls.

A virtual event features an agenda of topic-specific sessions that take place either sequentially or concurrently over the course of a day or days, as well as staffed resource centers, virtual product exhibits, and one-to-one chatrooms for scheduled and organic networking with other attendees. Participants in different locations can see and be seen, hear and be heard, and engage directly with other attendees, speakers, and exhibitors based on their interests. All sessions are professionally produced to optimize content for attendees and Individual sessions throughout the agenda may be held in the style of a webinar, an interactive videoconference, or small group discussions.

The FAA UAS Symposium – Remotely Piloted Edition brings enterprise UAS operators and commercial and recreational remote pilots face-to-face, in a virtual environment, with the regulators who are enabling drone integration into the National Airspace System. The symposium is an unrivaled opportunity to learn, train and troubleshoot with the entire UAS community to ensure your operations remain safe and grow along with regulations.

The FAA UAS Symposium – Remoted Piloted Edition has flexible pricing to allow you to register for what you will be able to attend. We understand that everyone has different schedules and have worked to develop options that will allow everyone to participate in the manner that works best for them.

See complete registration options.

Registration fees are necessary to produce a high-quality event and reflect the resources required to support the creation and management of this virtual experience. The symposium features four days of programming via an interactive virtual platform to educate and inform stakeholders throughout the UAS industry about the rules, regulations, and best practices for operating safely and securely in the airspace.

Registration fees for the FAA UAS Symposium – Remotely Piloted Edition are approximately 40% lower than ‘Early Bird’ pricing and 50% lower than standard pricing for the 4^th Annual FAA UAS Symposium in June 2019. A comparison is provided below for reference.

In addition to fees that are significantly less than last year’s in person event, attendees will not incur travel or lodging expenses. This will allow individuals like small drone operators, who in the past, were unable to attend, new opportunities to participate.

Everyone attending the Symposium must pay the registration fee. Discounted rates have been established for the following categories: Government, Military, Public Safety and Students. Contractors do not qualify as government employees and must pay the Industry rate.

For more information, please show policies.

You can review all pass types and begin your registration on the Registration page.

There is no deadline to register. We recommend that you register in advance of the event in order to familiarize yourself with the different opportunities that are available throughout the FAA UAS Symposium – Remotely Piloted Edition. Please note: if you register on day of the event, there will be lag time between finalizing your registration and receiving your access link and/or code.

Access links and/or codes are meant solely for the registered individual; they may not be sold, traded, transferred or shared with anyone else.

Once you register for the FAA UAS Symposium – Remotely Piloted Edition, you will receive a confirmation via email. Approximately, one week before the start of the Episode, you will receive details on how to prepare for the symposium. You will be able to access the event platform via your internet browser.

You will be able to watch presentations (both live and on-demand), ask questions of speakers, engage in networking opportunities with speakers and other attendees, and interact with the UAS Support Center (previously the Resource Center) to review relevant information as well as schedule 1-on-1 meetings with FAA representatives! In short, you will have the full symposium experience from the comfort and safety of your home or office.

In order to access the virtual event platform, the minimum recommended bandwidth is 1.5mbps. A camera and microphone connected to your computer are recommended in order to have one-to-one virtual meetings. Speakers or headphones are required to hear the content being presented. To optimize the platform’s functionality, it is recommended that either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers be used.

The virtual platform utilizes Vimeo as the video player. For government personnel using a government computer, please note this may not work on all VPNs. In this case, please disconnect VPN and try again.

AUVSI will be directly contacting all registrants for the 5^th Annual FAA UAS Symposium to transfer your registration to the FAA UAS Symposium – Remotely Piloted Edition. If you have not yet confirmed your registration transfer or need to make a change, please contact Debbie DesRoches at meetings@auvsi.org.

All registration policies are listed here. If you have reviewed the policies and would like to request a change, please contact meetings@auvsi.org.

Please contact us at meetings@auvsi.org