USGS Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center

Land Remote Sensing Program Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Program Office

The Land Remote Sensing Program (LRS), long known as an authoritative source of aerial photography and satellite-based imagery, has established a new program for earth observation using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). An important focus of this new office will be to leverage the commitment that the defense and intelligence communities have made in supporting UAS research. Working in partnership with many other Federal agencies, academia, and industry groups, the office will promote UAS technology for civil, domestic applications. This new program office is located at the Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center (RMGSC) in Lakewood Colorado.

For more information please contact: Mike Hutt

News Release

Office Overview New Mexico State University UAS Launch

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) will transform the methods and techniques employed across the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in support of our mission to serve the Nation by providing reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life. Cost effective UAS technology is currently available to support a wide variety of applications including: managing federal lands; monitoring environmental conditions and natural resources use; analyzing dynamic earth processes to support global and climate change investigations; generating mapping, charting, and geodesy products; conducting environmental risk assessments; and preventing, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from natural and human-induced disasters while increasing the economic competitiveness of the Nation.

UAS capabilities have the potential to effectively fill current observation gaps that are critical to gaining a better understanding and scientific knowledge related to climate change research, water resources forecasting, ecosystem monitoring and management and natural hazards. These information gaps frequently exist over remote and often dangerous areas, such as the polar regions, the expansive lands managed by DOI, volcanic islands, and other remote reaches of the Earth. Manned aircraft flights are seldom feasible in these areas due to long flight durations, hazardous weather conditions and associated operations cost. Satellite based observations are hindered by course resolutions, limited sensor capabilities and repeat coverage cycles that can often be weeks. The use of UAS technology allows flexibility in delivering timely data, for longer durations, tailored to the required resolution and radiometric parameters and expands the ability to obtain remotely sensed data to inventory and monitor dynamic landscape altering events and conduct impact analysis over previously logistically challenging areas. The use of UAS technology will enhance our ability to provide unbiased scientific information to better enable decision makers to make informed decisions.

A focus and emphasis of the USGS UAS Program Office is to maintain and enhance our ability to leverage the substantial commitment the Defense and Intelligence Communities have made supporting advanced UAS research, technology and applications development. This project will engage industry and academic affiliates that developed UAS technologies for national defense and now will apply them for the benefit of the DOI and USGS missions. The USGS UAS Program Office, an operational component of the Geography Discipline's Land Remote Sensing Program, will work with mission partners such as the DOI Aviation Management Directorate, NOAA, NASA, DARPA, USNORTHCOM, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, DOI and agencies within the Department, USDA and agencies within the Department, academia and commercial entities to evaluate and develop UAS capabilities to support and/or serve as:

Satellite Augmentation Systems
Wildland Fire Science and Management
Land Management
Climate Change
Environmental Research
Incident Support Operations
DOI Border Patrol and Monitoring
Communications and Broadcast Services
Search and Rescue
Mapping
Monitoring Wildlife and Habitat

The USGS UAS Program Office will:
Lead and coordinate the USGS efforts to promote and develop UAS technology for civil, domestic applications. A key task will be to develop a report that will serve as a roadmap for the development of these applications by the Department and USGS. The document will be updated yearly and used to evaluate the feasibility of future research, application developments, and mission support. In addition, it will help influence budget requests, plans and allocations. The report will:

Provide an overview of the present state of the platforms and sensor capabilities;
Provide a foundation for development of a comprehensive DOI/USGS UAS roadmap;
Determine and document technologies necessary to support future missions; and
Determine and document potential future civil missions for UAS based on user-defined needs.

The goal of the USGS UAS Program Office will be to support long-term outcomes that will directly benefit the Nation:

Improve natural hazard forecasting and the analysis of the impacts on the environment;
Improve our understanding of climate change to better plan for the likely impacts;
Broaden our abilities to monitor land use change and better understand and protect ecosystems;
Assess Arctic ice change and its impacts on ecosystems, coasts, and transportation;
Increase safety and effectiveness of wildland fire management; and
Develop precipitation and evaporation forecasting to better manage water resources.

The Polaris/Nova UAS is launched from an airboat by USGS FL Co-Op Unit scientist Adam Watts and University of Florida student Scott Bowman. The hand-launched, electric-powered platform was developed jointly with the University of Florida to perform low-altitude surveys of wildlife or habitats at high resolution.

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U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/UAS/
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Page Last Modified: Monday, 16-Nov-2009 16:03:50 Mountain Standard Time