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NOAA UAS Program Hosts “Lightning Round” Briefing of FY16 & 17 Projects

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 briefing from each PI.  The UAS Program has focused on increasing opportunities to openly discuss the strategy for each project to capture any objectives/observation requirements which may lead to Research to Operations (R2O) transition opportunities.

Background
The overall goal of the projects across all of its objectives will be to identify UAS observing strategies or technologies that can be developed, tested and matured for transition into NOAA operations by one or more Line Offices.  A UAS observing strategy is simply how a Line Office will use UAS observations to meet its mission.  Based on observing requirements, the basic elements of a UAS observing strategy include: 

  • Platform selection, 
  • Payload selection, 
  • A concept of operations, 
  • Information management plan, 
  • Life-cycle management plan and 
  • Staffing, safety, training and proficiency plans.

The briefings will be available if you were unable to join the webinar.  Please contact John Walker or John “JC” Coffey with any questions.

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