June 2017

The AUVSI SUAS Competition is designed to foster interest in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), stimulate interest in UAS technologies and careers, and to engage students in a challenging UAS mission. The competition requires students to design, integrate, report on, and demonstrate a UAS capable of autonomous flight and navigation, remote sensing via onboard payload sensors, and execution of a specific set of tasks. The competition has been held annually since 2002. The 2017 competition was […]

Nine NOAA teams were awarded funding to explore the use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to capture NOAA observation requirements. The NOAA Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Program hosted NOAA UAS Program FY17 Project Kick-Off on June 15th to congratulate the winning teams and outline the UAS Program’s requirements for this year’s Principle Investigators (PI).  UAS Program Director, Robbie Hood, led the webinar with support briefing from OMAO and AOC.  Robbie focused on the engineering reviews, reporting

Robbie Hood Briefs Interagency Coordinating Committee for Airborne Geosciences Research and Applications (ICCAGRA) on Global Hawk UAS Hurricane Mission Successes. The NOAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Program Director, Robbie Hood, briefed at the Spring 2017 ICCAGRA Meeting which was held June 13-14th at NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (brief below).  The briefing highlighted the positive results from NOAA’s Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) Missions which included: The Interagency Coordinating Committee for Airborne Geosciences Research and Applications

NOAA UAS Program teams with NASA for EPOCH which will investigate how storms develop into hurricanes and intensify. This project will conduct up to six 24-hour science flights using the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft from NASA Armstrong, 1-30 August 2017. Three of the flights are being supported through a partnership with the NOAA UAS Program. The aircraft will overfly developing tropical cyclones and collect data using 3 on-board instruments (EXRAD, HAMSR, and AVAPS). EXRAD (ER-2

The report documents the findings from the Inter-Agency Arctic Requirements Workshop from January 31 to February 1, 2017 in College Park, MD. The NOAA UAS Program has released it’s Arctic Domain Awareness Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Workshop Report documenting the work and analysis from the forum.  The event was held at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, MD from January 31 to February 1, 2017.