States and localities applying for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Integration Pilot Program were asked to submit a notice of intent to the FAA. This Tuesday was the deadline for that submission.
The interest appears to be literally sky high, underscoring the excitement surrounding this area of innovation. The program aims to provide a mechanism for state, local, tribal, and private sector partners to work with the federal government to develop and enforce UAS regulations. At the start of this month, Intel itself applauded the program.
Thousands of interested parties have already started working together on this matter. They want to encourage further testing of the integration of UAS technology. The program organizers are planning to allow organizations to create strategic partnerships that promote the use of drone technology to benefit communities, test technology solutions that address concerns related to their deployment, and generate critical data to inform smart public policy. And they are looking forward to doing all these in obvious coordination with the localities.
The program proposals are quite interesting. They ate expected to facilitate amazing drone operations. We may not yet have even thought of some of them. This new industry is expected to create global economic opportunities for public safety, and commercial and entertainment applications.
Drones have already been seen addressing a range of real-world problems by providing safe access to hard-to-reach locations like work in disaster recovery, asset inspection and even tracking polar bear populations in the Arctic. Intel is trying to push that boundary of drone technology with systems that could be valuable in a broader range of testing scenarios.
The ready-to-fly Intel® Aero drone software development platform is a fully assembled and fully functional quadcopter powered by the Intel® Aero Computer Board. It is equipped with Intel® RealSense™ depth sensing and vision capabilities. It is geared exclusively for developers, researchers and educators who need a faster path to get applications airborne. Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) trials conducted alongside the FAA and NASA are already helping to develop and test guidelines for collaborative communications and navigation (C&N) among unmanned aerial systems. Intel® Falcon™ 8+ System allows large and complex facilities to be inspected during an operation. Capturing accurate and precise data, it helps to better inform business decisions on asset maintenance.
A very recent inspection was undergone at a Scottish gas terminal. More than 1,100 images and 12GB of valuable data were collected with minimal interruption to normal operations. The Intel® Sirius Pro System is a kind of fixed-wing UAV. It is designed for endurance and coverage of large areas for applications. It can be useful in city mapping, a survey of large construction areas, agriculture, and inspection. The Intel® Shooting Star™ drone fleet already set the Guinness World Record in 2016 for the Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) airborne simultaneously. To manage a flight by hundreds of beautifully choreographed drones in various light shows, all you need is a single laptop and one pilot.
Intel is committed to supporting the drone ecosystem. It wants to set an example of how drones can be used in productive and exciting ways to make amazing experiences possible, now and in the future. Intel has come up with a wide range of technology innovations, from the data centers in the cloud to the 5G communication platforms, computing on the edge, autonomous vehicles, and artificial intelligence.
Anil Nanduri, vice president of the New Technology Group and general manager of Unmanned Aviation Systems at Intel Corporation, said that Intel is excited to join others as the FAA UAS Integration Pilot Program is implemented in states and cities throughout the United States. With the UAS technology applications taking off, this program and the innovation of the parties involved are potentially capable of paving the way for American leadership.
