[UAS] Update on CALS UAS efforts

[Mcclaran, Mitchel P - (mcclaran)]

Hi Matt,


Thank you for preparing the summary.  I do have one correction about the Santa Rita: we will be contracting for UAV flights over the the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (near Tombstone, AZ

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=10978&page=2 ) this fall. Next fall, we hope to have our own UAVs and will fly them over the Santa Rita (http://cals.arizona.edu/srer) to evaluate the detection of biomass utilization by grazing livestock across a 200 ha pasture.


Cheers,

Mitch


Mitch McClaran
Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Director for Research, Santa Rita Experimental Range
Assistant Director, Arizona Experiment Station
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
University of Arizona
520-390-9801 (cell)
520-621-1673 (office)
http://snre.arizona.edu/people/mitch-mcclaran
Office Location: 112 Biological Sciences East



________________________________
From: UAS <uas-bounces at list.cals.arizona.edu> on behalf of Rahr, Matt - (rahr) <rahr at ag.arizona.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 7:49 AM
To: UAS Interest Group (uas at list.cals.arizona.edu)
Subject: [UAS] Update on CALS UAS efforts

Hello,

I was asked by UITS yesterday if CALS was doing anything exciting with UAS/UAVs. I've been loosely keeping tabs on varying activities, but have been out of the loop with a few units, especially ABE. If you have anything to add to the summary below, would you mind responding to the list?

Thanks,
Matt

Hi Nik,

We are loosely building a UAS interest group in CALS, although its meant to be as inclusive as possible. In fact, CALS has partnered with USDA, Arizona Western College, NAU and a few private firms, including Raytheon and M3 Consulting. We have about a dozen drones throughout CALS and Cooperative Extension. Most are flown under the "recreational users" hat for use in remote sensing, but our department's (CCT<http://cct.cals.arizona.edu/>) usage of drones in high value video production pushes us out of that category. We've been in touch with FAA several times, and feel we have a clear path going forward. The first step is registering a UAS with the FAA (which gets us a tail number). This is a simple process, one that does not dictate UAS usage. But, when we sent the paperwork over to Procurement and Contract Services for signature, it got sent up the flagpole and over to Risk Management. RM has been responsive and pro-active in working with us. We are meeting with them and the Office of General Council soon. Simultaneously, we've submitted our Section #333 Exemption form to the FAA. We should be hearing back on that soon.

This Fall, researchers in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment (SNRE<http://snre.arizona.edu/>) will be flying multi-spectral lidar over the Santa Rita Experimental Range<http://cals.arizona.edu/srer/> (part of the Arizona Experiment Station) via a UAS operator contracted through NAU.

Farther out, we'd like to use our Experiment Station centers in Yuma<http://ag.arizona.edu/aes/yac/> and Maricopa<cals-mac.arizona.edu> as training hubs for those that seek skills in flying, post-image processing, and videography. Maricopa would also like to share this facility with their neighbors at the USDA-Arid Lands Research Center (ALARC<http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=20-20-05-00>), who share an interest in UAS-based remote sensing.

CCT<http://cct.cals.arizona.edu/> has begun building a UAS website to help coordinate efforts, documents, etc between our UAS users. It's still in development, but I'll let you know when it's ready.


Matt Rahr
Director, CALS Communications and Cyber Technologies (CCT)
VM Hosting, Network & IT Security - lab at cals.arizona.edu<mailto:lab at cals.arizona.edu>
Programming & Web Development - webdev at cals.arizona.edu<mailto:webdev at cals.arizona.edu>
Video Production & Classroom Tech - video at cals.arizona.edu<mailto:video at cals.arizona.edu>
More Information Online -  http://cct.cals.arizona.edu<http://cct.cals.arizona.edu/>
520-626-0329

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