Congress to Hear UAV Expert from SDSU

An open forum for congress will hear presentations today about unmanned aerial vehicles from San Diego State University researcher Mike Hennig.

Hennig will educate members of Congress, industry stakeholders and the public about civilian uses for UAVs. He will give a presentation at the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus Science and Technology Fair in Washington D.C.

“The media has the public acclimated to seeing UAVs as large, missile firing, Predator or Global Hawk aircrafts, but there is another world of small aircraft that are doing so much to enhance the safety and productivity in many lives,” Hennig said.“This is a huge opportunity for us trying to push for the civilian based efforts of UAV use.”

UAVs in the Viz Center

In  the past eight years, the SDSU Visualization Center, located in the Chemical Sciences Laboratory building, has been a key resource in using massive imagery for organizing geospatial data for emergency response.

The SDSU Viz Center, and technology partner RP Flight Systems, have conducted numerous civilian efforts using UAV systems including:

• participating in large scale wildfire exercises
• mapping invasive plant species
• performing population studies for high risk earthquake regions.

“All the research and recovery based work within the Viz Center give us a tremendous amount of access to jump ahead academically and benefit scientific communities,” Hennig said. “Gene, RP Flight Systems president, has been able to open great avenues for us with his support and reputation in the industry.”

Current Research

Currently, Bennig and Robinson are UAV fleet operators for the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Research Project by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

http://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news.aspx?s=73802