Brangelina beware.

The paparazzi of Splash News are coming for you and you'll never see them coming. Gary Morgan, chief executive of the celebrity-photo agency, said he'd like to be buzzing his quarry soon with silent, miniature drones mounted with tiny cameras. No more harassment from helicopters hovering in the Hollywood Hills.

Engineers at the MIT Humans and Automation Lab are developing unmanned drones similar to the ones used by the CIA--only a lot smaller. WSJ's Siobhan Gorman reports.

"It would strike fear in the hearts of every celebrity having a birthday party," Mr. Morgan said. "Call it C3paparazzo," after the robot in Star Wars. Personal drones aren't yet plying U.S. flyways. But an arms race is building among people looking to track celebrities, unfaithful lovers or even wildlife. Some organizations would like them for emergency operations in areas hit by natural disasters. Several efforts to develop personal drones are scheduled for completion in the next year. "If the Israelis can use them to find terrorists, certainly a husband is going to be able to track a wife who goes out at 11 o'clock at night and follow her," said New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder. Drones now are associated with the unmanned Predator craft the Central Intelligence Agency uses to fire Hellfire missiles at militants in Pakistan's tribal areas. But the

essential technology is increasingly available beyond military circles, and spreading fast. An unmanned aircraft that can fly a predetermined route costs a few hundred bucks to build and can be operated by iPhone.

For now, the Federal Aviation Administration limits domestic use of drones to the government, and even those are under tight restrictions. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency is working with private industry on standards that might allow broader use once drone technology evolves. When it comes to paparazzi use of drones, she said, "our primary concern with that would be safety issues." However, there already is a regulatory gray area: recreational use of drones. The FAA doesn't have explicit rules governing such uses, but Ms. Brown said an advisory that applies to pilotless drones recommendsbut doesn't require that such aircraft be flown away from populated areas; away from regular airplanes; at an altitude below 400 feet; and that airports be notified if the craft is flying nearby.

Mr. Felder said the recreational exception could provide clever lawyers with an opening for use of the drones. The ability to share software and hardware designs on the Internet has sped drone development, said Christopher Anderson, founder of the website DIY Drones, a clearinghouse for the nearly 12,000 drone hobbyistsaround the world. A coming DIY Drone competition will challenge members to walk a mile with a drone following from above. The goal is to make a drone that can stabilize itself and track its target. Given the rapid evolution of technology, Mr. Anderson said, "that's now a technically trivial task." Ohio State University art and technology professor Ken Rinaldo is drawing up designs for his Paparazzi Dronea successor to his Paparazzi Bot, a robot he deployed at the Vancouver Olympics to snap photos of the athletes and spectators. "They'll be able to move around and sense distances and obstacles," Mr. Rinaldo said. "Mine will definitely have a lot of flash and blingprobably some lasers, too." But so far they can't perform such tasks for long: The best of the smaller proto-drones can stay aloft for 30 minutes or so. Much work is focused on extending battery life and flight time.
Enlarge Image

Channing Johnson for The Wall Street Journal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Kim Jackson demonstrated drone technology last month.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, professor and former Navy fighter pilot Missy Cummings is working with her students to build a "Personal Sentry" drone. Under a military contract with Boeing Corp., her goal is to develop a drone the size of a pizza box with small propellers that can watch a soldier's back on the battlefield. When a drone sees approaching danger, it will buzz a warning to a soldier's cellphone. But the real prize may be in civilian applications. "The military stuff is kind of passe," Ms. Cummings said. "It

doesn't take a rocket scientist from MIT to tell you if we can do it for a soldier in the field, we can do it for anybody." As a parent of a 3-year-old, she said, she could use the same technology to track her daughter on her way to school (she would need to plant an electronic bug in her lunch box or backpack). That would "bring a whole new meaning to a hover parent," she said. Schools could even use drones for perimeter control. Indeed, many nonmilitary uses of drones provide obvious benefitsfrom surveying wildlife to tracking the security of oil pipelines. Other potential commercial applications include unmanned cargo flights. But human nature being what it is, it won't take long for the technology to be embraced for less noble ends. Could nosey neighbors use a drone to monitor who isn't picking up after their dogs? "That's possible," said Henry Crumpton, a former top CIA counterterrorism official who is now chairman of a company that develops dronesincluding one that can take off vertically, fly through a window and hover silently over your breakfast table. "The only thing you're bounded by is your imaginationand the FAA in the United States," he said. Mr. Felder, the divorce lawyer, said clever attorneys will find ways to get around FAA restrictions, perhaps by claiming their drones are for personal usea distinction that should steer clear of FAA rules. "This thing would be totally legal. There's no violation of anybody's premises," he said.

Ms. Cummings predicted it's just a matter of time before drone technology and safety improvements make the gadgets a common part of the urban landscape. Privacy issues could emerge if such drones become common. While the military has rules of engagement governing drone use, there is no similar set of rules to protect privacy for domestic use of drones. "If everybody had enough money to buy one of these things, we could all be wandering around with little networks of vehicles flying over our heads spying on us," Ms. Cummings said. "It really opens up a whole new Pandora's Box of: What does it mean to have privacy?" However, even those charged with protecting privacy see an upside to Splash News' would-be paparazzi drones. "I'm all for it," says Aaron Cohen, a former Israeli Special Forces operative now at the Hollywood-based celebrity protection outfit IMF Security Consultants Inc., "if the paparazzi want to use drones and get off the streets and stop crashing into each other."