The industry advisory board will be held in Washington, D.C. at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. The NOAA UAS Program is co-hosting the National Science Foundation’s Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems as it holds its semi-annual Industry Advisory Board (IAB) meetings to review research progress and re-evaluate how our projects are meeting industry needs. It will be held in Washington, D.C. at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. Regular IAB

NOAA Brief’s Department of Interior’s (DOI) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Users Group on Successful Optionally Pilot Aircraft (OPA) Flights for GRAV-D Missions. The NOAA GRAV-D and UAS Programs briefed DOI’s UAS Users Group on the successful use of the Aurora Flight Sciences’ Centaur Optionally Pilot Aircraft (OPA), Flights for GRAV-D Missions.  On August 2nd, Monica Youngman and John “JC” Coffey described the beginnings of the project as a NOAA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant

Aircraft to Provide Wildfire Measurements in Support of FIREX and Fire Weather Forecasting Black Swift Technologies (BST), a specialized engineering firm based in Boulder, CO, announced today that their small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS), SuperSwiftTM, has been selected by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the sUAS Observation System (sUASOS) for wildfire measurements in support of NOAA’s FIREX field mission and their fire weather forecasting initiative. With a legacy of delivering highly accurate sUAS

GEOHuntsville UAS Working Group is working to establish a means of assisting public first responders to do their jobs more efficiently and with greater effectiveness. During the week of July 17th in Huntsville, AL, at a time when most folks were seeking shade and the comfort of air conditioned facilities, one dedicated group climbed up to the rooftop of the iconic Von Braun Center near downtown to test the feasibility of UAS operations for an

Joint UAS Testing at the NIST Test Site tested the UAS across a wide variety of real-world tasks, July 11th-13th. The NOAA Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Program was invited to participate with counterparts from DHS, DOJ, DOD and civilian emergency responders for a joint UAS assessments. The UAS demonstrations were held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland July 11th-13th. Multiple UAS conducted multiple tasks, and the schedule of the

Sixteen 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 the NOAA UAS Program FY 16 & 17 “Lightning Round” Briefings on July 10th to inform the 16 winning teams research and operations, and provided UAS best practices and lessons learned with this year’s Principle Investigators (PI).  UAS Program Director, Robbie Hood, led the webinar with support

NOAA brief’s Department of Interior’s (DOI) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Users Group on Successful UAS Calibration/Validation Assessment of Satellite. The NOAA GOES-R and UAS Programs Brief DOI’s UAS Users Group on the successful small UAS Calibration/Validation  (CAL/VAL) Assessment of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-R).  On July 5th, Frank Padula and John “JC” Coffey described that one of the main objectives of the GOES-R field campaign was to validate the SI traceability of the

Robbie Hood on a distinguished panel during the Autonomy & Innovation Across the Defence, Security and Civil Sectors Conference. Robbie Hood, NOAA UAS Program Director, was on a distinguished panel during the Autonomy & Innovation Across the Defence, Security and Civil Sectors Conference at the British Embassy on June 29th. The British Defence Staff US (BDSUS) S&T and Trade teams, British Embassy, Washington DC  in coordination with the U.S. DoD and multiple Embassy based UK

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. 

The use of the Global Hawk UAS for Environmental Intelligence (EI) will be discussed at NOAA Headquarters on June 2nd. The NOAA UAS Program’s Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) project has been an evaluation of an observing strategy deploying a high altitude, long endurance Global Hawk Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) to mitigate risk to hurricane and other high impact weather forecasting due to satellite data gaps. The team will be discussing the SHOUT concept of operations,

NOAA UAS PROGRAM AND NWS COORDINATE WITH NATIONAL AND ALASKAN STATE PARTNERS CONDUCTED UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEM (UAS) OPERATIONS. The annual spring breakup of Alaskan rivers brings the threat of flooding from ice jams that dam river channels and cause water to backup and inundate communities. NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) and the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management have monitored Alaskan rivers during breakup to provide advanced warning of flooding for several decades