98
February 2015
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
REGION
EWS
Western Great Lakes and Heartland Regions
THE JANUARY 8-9, 2015
FROZEN
UAS TOUR BLOWS
INTO GRAND FORKS, NORTH DAKOTA
A
SPRS attendees from the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota and
Wisconsin Departments of Transportation, the Minnesota Department
of Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, USGS, KMB, Inc.
and others all want to thank the University of North Dakota, the Customs
Air and Marine Operations and the USAF 69th Observation Squadron for
hosting a bunch of
frozen
remote sensors gain a better understanding of
high tech UAS platforms.
els have swallowed up many farms in the region due to climate
change. This was followed with a short UAS history lesson by
Brian Huberty. He showed a series of photographs taken from
1957 to 1965 by Walter Halloran who ran the U.S. Army Com-
bat Surveillance programs in West Germany and in Arizona.
The next day was slightly warmer and less windy where the
group met at the Grand Forks Air Force Base for a tour of the
Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Operations
ASPRS members from Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Da-
kota drove through brisk winter weather (30-40 mph winds
and temps below zero) to meet in Grand Forks, North Dakota
which is now a center for high-end Unmanned Aircraft Systems
(UAS). Members met at the University of North Dakota (UND),
Aerospace Building Thursday afternoon with a welcome by As-
sistant Dean, Ken Polovitz. UAS Director, Alan Palmer gave
an overview on how the newly emerging UAS technologies and
program dovetails with one of the largest aircraft flight training
programs in the world. UND Aerospace has over 170 manned
aircraft for flight instruction training university and interna-
tional pilots including flight simulators such as this CRJ-200 in
which Peter Jenkins, MN DOT is viewing.
The afternoon was wrapped up with a tour led by Trevor
Woods at the UND Aerospace UAS Flight Operations Center
at the Grand Forks Airport which features the Boeing Insitu
ScanEagle. UND is researching for example how to integrate
UAS systems into the National Airspace.
The evening was spent at a rustic restaurant across the riv-
er in East Grand Forks where Dr. Bradley Rundquist, UND
Geography gave an overview of the North Dakota AmericaV-
iew program. He depicted with Landsat imagery the massive
changes in the Devil’s Lake region where rising lake water lev-
