2016 TAAC Conference Panel to include Dr. Chris Walach from NIAS

NIAS - The FAA-designated Nevada UAS Test Site supports FAA UAS Test Site collaboration

News provided by

Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS)

Dec 14, 2016, 11:06 ET

SANTA FE, N.M., Dec. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- UAS TAAC Conference 2016 -- On Wednesday December 14^th, Dr. Chris Walach, Director of the FAA-designated Nevada UAS Test Site, will join other FAA-designated UAS Test Site members on a FAA Test Site panel to discuss their vital role in support of the FAA and the UAS industry.

"The UAS Test Sites routinely collaborate on UAS activities as demonstrated by our participation in the NASA UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management) program and the FAA UAS Detection at Airports Pathfinder Program," said Dr. Chris Walach. "Recently we teamed together with Northern Plains UAS Test Site to test counter-UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) technology at the Denver International Airport (DIA). In the future, we will continue to collaborate on validating sense and avoid technologies and command and control infrastructure that will support BVLOS UAS flight operations. This will be of great value to the FAA and the UAS Industry," he said.

Attend the Wednesday Session "FAA Test Sites" - The UAS test site discussion will include:

Overcoming significant operational challenge/lessons learned.
How a specific research project lends itself to regulatory change.
The importance of research projects not specifically conducted for the purpose regulatory change.
Future Test Site research possibilities and the challenges of future operations (BVLOS, swarm, cloud-seeding, package delivery, operations over people, etc.)

Panelist Include: Chris Walach - Nevada, Mark Blanks - VA Tech, Nicholas Flom - North Dakota, Jerry Hendrix -Texas A&M, Cathy Cahill – Alaska, Scott Brenton - NY, Dennis Zaklan - NMSU