News / Events UAVs Soaring Beyond Military Uses
Almost daily, video from hot spots in Iraq or Afghanistan appears on television. The bulk of the video is shot from unmanned aerial vehicles like the ones demonstrated Wednesday at the Las Cruces International Airport by New Mexico State University’s Physical Science Laboratory. The practical applications for civilian use of UAV’s are limitless, said Ben Schreiber, of the 46th Test Group at Holloman Air Force Base. The quantum leap forward for this technology that began with the space race is miniaturization.
The demonstration included a Shadow 200 used by the U.S. Army for surveillance and other much smaller UAV’s that gave those in attendance an up-close perspective.
The entire program is funded through the Department of Defense and Homeland Security. Steve Hottman, deputy director of the lab, explained how civilian applications of UAV’s can save lives and help with economic development and disaster management. We can put these (UAV) in the air over a forest fire and see areas below the smoke, Hottman said. Firefighters have been lost in many cases because they were trapped and no one could find them.
Hottman told how a UAV can fly over a Hawaiian coffee plantation to help select beans ready to be picked from those that can wait a bit longer. We’ll be working with the U.S. Coast Guard this year, Hottman said. With the UAV we can see whether fishermen are using legal nets and whether they are in legal fishing areas.
Three NMSU engineering students demonstrated a UAV helicopter they built as a senior project. Manuel De Alba, 26; Louis Salas, 22; and Daniel Mendoza; 23, showed off their project via videotape, but had the helicopter with them to show its actual size. The trio received a stipend from NASA for their work on the helicopter. We were hired by the Suborbital Center for Excellence, De Alba said. NASA underwrites the project. All three of the students have definite ideas about where their NMSU engineering degrees will take them. For Salas it will be the defense industry, while Mendoza and De Alba prefer private industry and civilian applications. Research is research, De Alba said. I’m willing to do it anywhere.
Schreiber said a UAV in a cockroach skeleton can be used to enter a building and fly around. It can look at the structure or help law enforcement, Schreiber said. What has to be remembered is while the uses are limitless, civil rights protection is important. Schreiber said it is not legal to fly a UAV over Las Cruces because it can easily invade residents’ privacy.