sUAS News staff member invited to safety study team.

Just before the holidays, sUAS News Podcast co-host Gene Robinson was invited to join a UA Safety Study Team being assembled by the NextGen Institute. The Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) has asked the NextGen Institute to a assemble a range of subject matter experts to determine the appropriate assessment and modeling methods and specific products after review goals, objectives, roadmaps, scenarios, con=ops and other UAS documentation. Special attention will be paid to the goal of identifying hazards and research needs. The invitees include industry names such as NASA, Honeywell, MITRE, NOAA, AMA, the armed forces, and several universities.

This effort will require a combination of short coordination meetings, day or half day working meetings and individual work. The project is expected to last approximately 10 months. The team will require leadership from a core group of safety analysts and expertise from subject matter experts. A comprehensive understanding of a range of UAS types, classes, capabilities, and mission envelopes will examine UAS control technology for remotely piloted and semi-autonomous vehicles, qualifications and procedures, avionics certification, FAA infrastructure and ground equipment, human factors, business cases and cost-economics cases.

Gene Robinson is certainly qualified to speak to several of these areas as the owner of RPFlightSystems, Inc, the manufacturer of the Spectra flying wing, RPSearch Services, a 501( c ) 3, non-profit that provides Search and Recovery (SAR) services utilizing UA, and lead pilot in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) UA flight team conducting ground breaking fire research. This flight team is the only NIST certified team currently operating in the nation.

Support Your Industry!

This ideal is important to us at the sUAS News Group. We strive to empower the community by providing it an unbiased voice as well as investing a healthy portion of the advertising revenue back into the airspace advocacy effort.

sUAS News will sponsor a portion of Gene’s participation in this safety study team. The expertise Gene brings to the table fills a huge void in the Global airspace integration effort.

If your business or group is interested in defraying some of the overhead expenses associated with Gene’s effort to assist the community, please email Patrick@suasnews.com