16 Dec 20242:30 PM ETByCelina Zhao

A Da Jiang Innovations drone collects spray from a whale’s blowhole.Ocean Alliance
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A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 386, Issue 6728.
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When he wants to learn the secrets of a whale, Iain Kerr, CEO of the conservation nonprofit Ocean Alliance, sends out a flying SnotBot. The device—a consumer drone from the Chinese company Da Jiang Innovations (DJI) fitted with Velcro and petri dishes—swoops close to a whale’s blowhole. Then, when the animal ejects a good blast of snot, it scoops up the spray, along with the wealth of biological data within: DNA, hormones, and oodles of microbes. The SnotBot offers a noninvasive and much cheaper way to learn about the endangered giants compared with traditional biopsy missions, Kerr says.

But increased tensions between the United States and China may put the next generation of SnotBots and other research drones used by U.S. academic scientists at risk. Provisions in the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), released on 7 December and expected to be voted into law, would trigger a 1-year countdown for U.S. agencies to assess the security threat of drone equipment from Chinese companies like DJI. If a product is determined to be a risk, it would be prohibited from operating on U.S. communications infrastructure.

Many scientists are alarmed at the possibility that they might have to give up a tool they say has become vital. “Rarely do you have a situation where someone says you have to stop using something without a replacement,” Kerr says. “It seems like lunacy to me.”

DJI’s drones have long been the top choice for many researchers, who use them for everything from mapping carbon cycling in ecosystems to tracking microbes in wildfire smoke to monitoring vulnerable species. The company currently accounts for 70% to 90% of the U.S. drone market, and scientists say they have few alternatives. Current U.S.-produced drones often have shorter ranges and poorer battery lives than their DJI counterparts and can cost 10 times as much.
a drone flying over a wildfire
Da Jiang Innovations drones collect samples of microbes in wildland fire smoke.David Vuono/Colorado School of Mines

But DJI’s alleged ties to the Chinese military and government have stoked fears of possible espionage from its devices, whose advanced cameras and sensors could allow unauthorized mapping of critical U.S. infrastructure: data that could be shared with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), critics of the company claim. The Department of Defense (DOD) already bans the use of DJI drones in research it funds, and in 2022, House of Representatives members Elise Stefanik (R–NY) and Mike Gallagher (R–WI) introduced the Countering CCP Drones Act to expand the restrictions. It sought, for example, to add DJI to the Federal Communications Commission’s Covered List, a list of equipment and services deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security. “It is strategically irresponsible to allow Communist China to be our drone factory,” Stefanik said after the House passed the act in September.

A version of the bill’s language, negotiated between the Senate and the House, has now been included in the NDAA. Once the bill passes, a designated national security agency will have 1 year to assess the surveillance capabilities of equipment and services from DJI, fellow Chinese drone producer Autel Robotics, and associated companies. The companies will be automatically added to the Covered List if the agency finds their products are a threat or makes no determination. Afterward, new models would be prohibited from accessing U.S. radio, Wi-Fi, and cellular networks—an effective ban. Existing drones could continue flying for now.

This has left many drone-using researchers nervous about the future of their studies. Some also say they fear the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Forest Service, and other nonmilitary federal research funders may go beyond the NDAA to simply enact a blanket ban on all DJI drone-based research, as DOD already has.

Leda Kobziar, a wildland fire scientist at the University of Idaho, pioneered the field of pyroaerobiology: tracking microbes, some harmful, that hitch a ride on particles in wildfire smoke. Her research regularly requires her to send fleets of drones into gusting plumes of fire. Even while being whipped around in convective air masses and high heat, DJI’s drones are “incredibly tough,” Kobziar says. She’s seen researchers using other drone brands encounter frequent communication errors, forcing them to ground the devices in risky conditions.
drones ready to launch with a wildfire in the background
Researchers prepare to launch Da Jiang Innovations drones into high-intensity forest fires.Krista Bonfantine/University of Idaho

To prepare for a possible ban, Kobziar and her collaborators have been cobbling together funding to buy a shared U.S.-made drone. It would cost twice as much as her typical DJI model, likely limiting the team to a single drone. “We’re all scrambling,” Kobziar says. “It’s taxpayer money on the line.”

Tom Bell at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution uses DJI drones to map stored carbon in coastal seaweed and seagrasses. DJI is the only brand he trusts to carry expensive sensors far out over the ocean. “You shouldn’t have to worry about whether your drone is going to come back,” Bell says.

The lack of realistic U.S. alternatives at the midrange drone size, the preferred dimensions of most labs, worries Bell as well. Arjan Meddens, an ecologist at Washington State University who uses DJI drones to map forest ecosystems, calls on the United States to invest in better, more affordable drone technology if it wants to ban Chinese devices. Otherwise, he says, U.S. researchers will face steep expenses and be at a “strong disadvantage” with scientists elsewhere.
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He is also skeptical that research drones pose a security risk. Research drones largely survey public land and natural resources, collecting imaging data that are already “freely available from U.S. governmental or state websites,” Meddens tells ScienceInsider.