FUASIC Breakout Session Summary
Stated purpose of breakout session: FUASIC - Proposal for a Federal UAS Interagency Conference (FUASIC) to align/coordinate Federal UAS priorities and activities.
Attendees: Representatives from NASA, NOAA, EPA, USFS, BLM, USGS,…
Findings
Reasons why we need to continue having workshops
· Sharing of information
· Networking
· Interagency coordination
Topics
· Who and how to invite, approach should be-invite key people from agencies and expect them to invite others from their agencies, primary focus is government.
· How often to hold the workshop, annually, but NOAA will be having one in the next 6 months as further proof of concept.
· Generally people liked the technical and science mix.
· Vendors-don’t have vendors or give them the day before or after the workshop, allows more open discussions, would need quite a bit more space to allow vendors to participate. A better approach for seeing the latest technology would be to attend the AUVSI conference or another UAS conference.
· Rotate lead thru agencies, USGS this year, another agency organizes it next year.
· Move the location, rotate the workshop to different locations across the U.S., not always in DC. No recommendation or decision on combining this workshop with other meetings/conferences like ASPRS UAS Reno may not be enough time for both. One suggestion was to develop a prioritized list of other UAS conferences to help decide the issue.
· Missing FAA participation, invite them, allows them to hear about our UAS science/applications.
· Keep format all plenary and don’t have separate tracks, at least for next workshop, may get too long in future, forcing parallel tracks.
· Recording and broadcasting recommendation - don’t record it or broadcast it, interactions are key, issue with broadcasting (webex) is you’re still at work, doing you’re work, its hard to hear what’s going on and you miss the interactions.
· Technical subcommittees discussed, another option is to identify topics at workshop that volunteers will address between workshops and report out on at next workshop.
· Topics for further investigations and reporting out at next workshop:
o Calibration sites for UAS in U.S. for both geometry and radiometry
o Broadcasting options, live streaming, others?
o What are steps to getting a UAS missions, how to book for beginners
· Common website to post information, set up “wrapper” website that is introduction to Federal UAS Programs (FUASP) that has links to agency UAS websites and FAA, need agency to take the lead and maintain it (fund, etc.).
· Form a “steering” committee, membership from Federal agencies, to address next workshop, topics/issues, membership, volunteers, discuss NSF involvement, etc.
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