GPS World

Tag: standards

  • ANSI establishes UAS standardization collaborative

    A May 19 meeting convened by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) confirmed there is broad-based support among key stakeholders from the private and public sectors for ANSI to establish an Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Standardization Collaborative (UASSC).

    The UASSC will work to coordinate and accelerate the development of the standards and conformity assessment programs needed to facilitate the safe, mass integration of UAS (drones) into the national airspace system of the United States.

    Initial priority areas of focus are expected to include:

    • UAS airworthiness
    • command and control systems
    • remote identification
    • flight operations, including operations over people and beyond visual line of sight
    • licensing, training, qualification and certification
    • sense and avoid systems
    • safety and risk management

    An initial kick-off meeting is anticipated in the third quarter of 2017. To stay up to date regarding future developments, email Jim McCabe, ANSI senior director, standards facilitation, at [email protected].

    The collaborative will also focus on international coordination and adaptability, with the goal of fostering the growth of the UAS market. The work effort will entail the development of a standardization roadmap to identify existing standards and standards in development, define where gaps exist and recommend additional work that is needed, along with a timeline for its completion and organizations that can perform the work.

    ANSI Standardization Collaboratives are formed to support emerging technologies and national and global priorities by advancing cross-sector coordination in the development and compatibility of standards and conformance programs.

    Ultimately, the purpose of such initiatives is to describe the current standards landscape, articulate standardization needs, inform resource allocation for standards participation, and drive coordinated standards activity while minimizing duplication of effort.

    As a neutral facilitator, ANSI has a successful track record of having convened a number of such collaboratives in areas as diverse as homeland security, electric vehicles, energy efficiency in the built environment and, most recently, additive manufacturing.

    The May 19 meeting drew close to 70 participants representing more than 40 organizations from industry, trade associations, standards developing organizations (SDOs), federal agencies, academia and others. The public- and private-sector co-chairs for the meeting were Earl Lawrence, director of the UAS Integration Office, Federal Aviation Administration, and Brian Wynne, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).

    ANSI has been in dialogue with numerous stakeholders over the past year on this topic, including via panel discussions during the 2016 ANSI Joint Member Forum and at the April 2017 ANSI Company Member Forum. A number of SDOs already are involved in UAS standardization, underscoring the need for coordination to achieve a coherent set of standards.

    “Given our history of bringing public- and private-sector stakeholders together to identify standardization needs to support new technologies, ANSI is well suited to facilitate the need for standards coordination in this exciting new technology area,” said ANSI president and CEO S. Joe Bhatia.

  • OGC approves new standard for geological science data

    The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has approved GeoSciML as an OGC Standard. The OGC GeoSciML Standard defines a model and encoding for geological features commonly described and portrayed in geological maps, cross sections, geological reports and databases.

    GeoSciML provides a mechanism for storage and exchange of a broad range of geologic data enabling users to generate geologic depictions (such as maps) in a consistent and repeatable fashion.

    The model was developed by the IUGS CGI (Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information), and version 4.1 is the first version officially submitted as an OGC standard. This standard describes a logical model and GML/XML encoding rules for geological map data, geological time scales, boreholes, and metadata for laboratory analyses.

    “Earlier versions of GeoSciML have been used for several years by geological data sharing projects around the world when GeoSciML was only an IUGS (International Union of Geological Sciences) standard. These include OneGeology, INSPIRE, the US Geoscience Information Network (USGIN), and the Australian AuScope and AusGIN projects,” said Ollie Raymond, chair of the GeoSciML SWG.

    “Having GeoSciML version 4 ratified as an official OGC standard is a huge step forward for GeoSciML, particularly to reassure application developers that GeoSciML is the way forward for geoscience data transfer,” Raymond said. “The collaboration of the previous IUGS GeoSciML working group and OGC has been a great example of effective cooperation between standards organisations.”

    “The formal documentation and approval of the GeoSciML 4.1 standards by OGC allows us to expand the exchange of highly interoperable geoscience data throughout the South American continent with the support of the OneGeology standards support network and allowed us to achieve the maximum 5 stars of OneGeology interoperability,” said Maria Glícia da Nóbrega Coutinho. head of the International Affairs Office of CPRM (The Geological Survey of Brazil) and OneGeology Board representative for South America.

    The GeoSciML standard includes a Lite model, used for simple map-based applications; a basic model, aligned with INSPIRE, for basic data exchange; and an extended model to address more complex scenarios. The standard also provides patterns, profiles (most notably of OGC Observations and Measurements; also ISO 19156), and best practices to deal with common geoscience use cases.

    For more information, contact [email protected].