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Tag: Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems

  • Nevada launches Drone Center of Excellence to support public safety

    Nevada launches Drone Center of Excellence to support public safety

    The Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) has launched of the Nevada Drone Center of Excellence for Public Safety (NDCOE), according to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

    NDCOE’s mission is to save lives and reduce air hazards from drone incursions by empowering a shared safety vision with the the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) integration of drones into the commercial air traffic system.

    Located in Las Vegas, with facilities donated by technology infrastructure company Switch, NDCOE will provide safety incursion research data, drone technology best practices and educational materials.

    The new center will conduct public workshops that promote and protect the public’s safety and privacy in an open and ethical manner.

    Over the last decade, UAS, more commonly referred to as drones, have experienced an unprecedented boom within aviation. Coinciding with the increase in popularity, incidents involving drones in tourist areas, as well as risks to larger manned aircraft are on the rise and present high-liability risks to property owners.

    Safe and successful UAS operations rely on quality training, end user education and maximizing public safety processes. To protect and educate residents and visitors, the center seeks to protect against drone users who pose a public safety hazard due to inexperience or malicious drone operations. Such hazards include drones hitting people or that have the potential to cause an airline disaster, and drone operations that violate safety, privacy or drone laws near high-traffic public places, at airports, near military bases or near critical infrastructure.

    NDCOE will also advance drone surveillance, detect and avoid (remote sensing), wildland firefighting, gas-leak detection, and time-sensitive medical delivery technologies for life-saving medical equipment and organs.

    “In addition to fostering major advances in UAS technology with testing partners like the FAA, NASA and Switch, Nevada is also home to the most registered drone users in the nation in Las Vegas,” said Paul Anderson, executive director of the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development. “This dynamic makes such a program as the Nevada Drone Center of Excellence for Public Safety a natural step as drones increasingly become a bigger part of our daily lives.”

    In a recent state-wide Nevada Drone Industry survey by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and NIAS, the NDCOE received support to open the first center of its kind in the U.S. In the survey, almost 80% of respondents were concerned about a recreational drone hitting an airline and causing an airline disaster, and almost 90% were concerned about aerial drones illegally penetrating FAA airspace without authorization at outdoor events such as sports stadium, concert or at large events.

    “We are taking an aggressive approach toward solving the complex UAS Industry challenge of mitigating drone incursions into the National Airspace System — one of the toughest FAA challenges today,” said Chris Walach, senior director, NIAS and the FAA-designated Nevada UAS Test Site. “What we are doing in Nevada will be of immense value to the DOT, FAA, DHS, DOJ, commercial airlines, visitor venues, and the UAS Industry. This new center will help advance infrastructure protections, drone detection innovations, enhance air safety, and expand air commerce in Nevada.”

    NIAS and the FAA-designated Nevada Unmanned Aviation Test Site lead the growth of the Nevada UAS industry through business teaming relationships, collaborating with primary research institutions on UAS research and development, and enhancing the Nevada UAS Industry knowledge base to attract new and permanent business and create jobs in the State of Nevada.

  • NASA completes third phase of UAS airspace testing

    NASA completes third phase of UAS airspace testing

    The Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) and its NASA Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) partners flew multiple unmanned aerial systems over a week-long testing period at the Nevada UAS Test Site at the Reno-Stead Airport.

    NASA UTM Testing. Credit: NIAS. (PRNewsfoto/Nevada Institute for Autonomous)

    This third phase of NASA’s UAS testing (TCL 3) again focused on airspace management technologies that will enable the safe integration of UAS into the national airspace.

    NASA provided a Flight Information Management System (FIMS) research platform that will serve as a future prototype system for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use to coordinate with unmanned service suppliers operating throughout the nation.

    Research areas of emphasis during the testing included UAS ground-control interfacing to locally manage operations, communication, navigation, surveillance, human factors, data exchange, network solutions and beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) architecture.

    On media day, a team from the Reno Fire Department simulated an incident with a victim experiencing severe blood loss and who needed an immediate transfusion. A multi-rotor UAS from Drone America was equipped with a container that held an actual packet of blood to be transported via drone in Nevada.

    High winds and frigid temperatures tested both the drone and those on the ground, but the drone successfully landed in the designated landing area so that firefighters could retrieve the blood packet and begin the faux-transfusion.

    The partners not only demonstrated drone flight capability, but also tested UAS traffic mapping and sensor and radar technology, all of which were connected through a NASA UAS Service Supplier (USS) network to NASA Ames.

    Technology Capability Levels

    NASA’s near-term goal is the development and demonstration of a possible future UTM system that could safely enable low-altitude airspace and UAS operations. Working alongside many committed government, industry and academic partners, NASA is leading the research, development and testing that is taking place in a series of activities called “Technology Capability Levels (TCL)”, each increasing in complexity.

    UTM TCL1 concluded field testing in August 2015 and is undergoing additional testing at an FAA site. Technologies in this activity addressed operations for agriculture, firefighting and infrastructure monitoring, with a focus on geofencing, altitude “rules of the road” and scheduling of vehicle trajectories.

    UTM TCL2, completed in October 2016, leveraged TCL1 results and focused on beyond visual line-of-sight operations in sparsely populated areas. Researchers tested technologies that allowed dynamic adjustments to availability of airspace and contingency management.

    UTM TCL3, just completed, leveraged TCL2 results and focused on testing technologies that maintain safe spacing between cooperative (responsive) and non-cooperative (non-responsive) UAS over moderately populated areas.

    UTM TCL4, with dates to be determined, will leverage TCL3 results and focus on UAS operations in higher density urban areas for tasks such as news gathering and package delivery. It will also test technologies that could be used to manage large-scale contingencies.

    NASA’s UTM technologies research and development is taking place in collaboration with the FAA. Results of research in the form of airspace integration requirements are expected to be transferred from NASA to the FAA in 2019 for the FAA’s further testing.

    “Advanced flight and highly technical scenarios like drone detection, surveillance of critical infrastructure aerial package delivery of critical first responder medical supplies, to the important NASA data interoperability protocols that will eventually form the backbone of the UTM system, we focused heavily on communications, navigation and surveillance to produce critical data for the NASA TCL 3 Campaign,” said Chris Walach, the senior director of NIAS and the FAA-designated Nevada UAS Test Site. “Our Nevada teammates did an amazing job working together to successfully complete the first series of major testing for NASA’s TCL 3 Campaign.”