Bryan Farrell, Interim Director, Raspet Flight Research Laboratory, Mississippi State University
Travis Potter, UAS/Remote Sensing Coordinator, FEMA Region 4
Lee Hathcock, Data Acquisitions Coordinator, Geosystems Research Institute, Mississippi State University
Austin Wingo, Associate Director for Flight Operations, Raspet Flight Research Lab, Mississippi State University
Introduction
Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) can provide valuable data and support for disaster response and recovery operations. Current field operations tend to utilize small UAS (under 55lbs) which have limited payload capacity, endurance, and range. Large UAS offer a greater capacity for range and payload availability, but also come with regulatory hurdles, associated costs, and deployment challenges. Given the complexity of disaster response for timely and accurate information, a large UAS is a tempting proposition for the responder toolbox. This abstract and presentation for the 105th Annual AMS Meeting focuses on the application of a large UAS for disaster response. It details the background of a multi-agency collaboration, the development of the technology, the regulatory hurdles and frameworks for operations, lessons learned, and opportunities for expansion.
Background
The multi-agency collaboration to explore large UAS for disaster response dates back to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) UAS Program Office initiative with the Northern Gulf Institute (NGI), a Mississippi State University (MSU) led NOAA Cooperative. The original focus was aligned with small UAS to provide data to better support the National Weather Service’s (NWS) River Forecast Centers (RFCs). Over the years and through iterations on the project, MSU’s Raspet Flight Research Laboratory (Raspet) was engaged to support regulatory research and large UAS data collection missions. Raspet started with a smaller Group 3 UAS (≈160lbs/14’ wingspan) for initial large UAS flights, but soon advanced to a larger group 3 (≈515lbs/22’ wingspan) and now group 4 UAS (≈1,800lbs/40’ wingspan). Through these missions and with the data provided, multiple phases of the projects were awarded and other federal stakeholders took notice.
A first working group facilitated by the NOAA UxS Research Transition Office (UxSRTO) between FEMA Region 4, NOAA NWS, NOAA OMAO, NGI, and Raspet explored concepts around expanding large UAS activity and what sorts of partnerships during disaster declarations could exist. Leveraging current projects as well as a Raspet’s Joint Unmanned Systems Training in Collaborative Environments Next Generation (Justice NextGen) project, with the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Division, the team explored and started developing a roadmap to prepare for grey sky events through blue sky activities. The team started small, leveraging current technologies and soon began exploring additional technologies and a roadmap for future integrations.
Operations, Regulatory Hurdles, and Lessons Learned
Early activities in the multi-agency collaborative development of the large UAS disaster response project focused on building out the current technology for live tiled imagery and faster post-processed high quality orthomosaics. This baseline for development was a building block for early identified needs. The team added a gimbaled EO/IR payload to allow for live inflight video as well to complement the tiled imagery and high quality post-processed orthomosaic. Given missions often occurred at airports in rural locations, traditional hot-spot capabilities couldn’t manage the amount of data and satellite communication was added to the ground control station.
Through this testing the team better understood data needs, mission assignment processes, and coordination for data streams and integration. Trial and error as well as iterative ground testing helped to develop knowledge around which agencies could access what software systems, where hosted data should sit for viewer access, communication, as well as better bandwidth management. The team also learned about better go and no-go criteria for operations, the strengths and weaknesses of large UAS for this concept of operation, and have elucidated many of the critical pathways to future scalable deployment of this technology. These challenges include items like beyond visual line of sight and/or Federal Aviation Administration airspace access, rapid deployment constraints, weather monitoring and forecasting, limited operational range under current radio frequency line of sight (RF LOS), as well as general resource management. The team is still actively engaging in both blue and grey sky activities to better understand and illustrate the technology as they seek to develop even greater capabilities and pave the way for a future that prominently features large UAS.
Future Opportunities
Large UAS will add a quickly advancing technology to the toolchest of future first responders that will rapidly improve the response and recovery activities through enhanced operational envelopes as well as faster processing of key data points including imagery collection that will later be used for damage assessments. The continued efforts of this team as well as other stakeholders will examine the increased range of large UAS so that RF LOS isn’t a limiting factor. Deployment will be better structured and planned through active stakeholder engagements and partnerships (i.e., distributed airports with letters of operational support). Advancements in autonomy, artificial intelligence, and machine learning as well as computational capacity will enable the processing of large data sets collected on the aerial platform to help identify key indicators for distribution to decision-makers in real time.
Conclusion
The efforts undertaken by the multi-agency consortium to advance large UAS for disaster response has proven the value of the technology. Much of the gains and efforts are still in their infancy. Stakeholder engagement will be essential in turning these efforts into a future reality. Large UAS won’t be a panacea but have the potential to do much public good. There are certainly costs and many disparate efforts that must combine to advance both regulation and technological capacity. The discussion at the 105th annual AMS will highlight these key considerations and engage stakeholders to think about what a large UAS could do for them and/or what they could contribute to the advancement of this technology.
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