news

Major companies in talks with state drone program

By KATIE MORITZ - JUNEAU EMPIRE

 

Companies the size of Microsoft and UPS are in negotiations with the state to partner with its University of Alaska Fairbanks-based drone program, a director said.

 

These companies would contract with the program — Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration — for drone services, a growing technology industry.

 

“We’ve got quite a few negotiations going on,” program deputy director Ro Bailey said in a presentation at the Capitol on Wednesday. “They’re shy, meaning they don’t want their names out there. We’re not allowed to talk about them until we have a contract.”

 

The program is planning for at least a couple of these companies to come on board soon, she said.

 

“We’ve got a couple of potential big ones that we’re hopeful will be signing some contracts in the next couple weeks,” Bailey said.

 

Drones — or unmanned aircraft systems, as they’re formally called — became the business of the state in 2001 when UAF’s program got its start.

 

Since then, the program has grown, and it now owns and leases more than 150 unmanned aircraft. One of those, the Ptarmigan, was built by UAF graduates.

 

With its first official flight in May 2014, UAF’s drone test site became the second in the country to be considered operational by the Federal Aviation Administration.

 

The university now runs one of six operational test sites in the U.S. Oregon, Hawaii and Iceland are partners in the Alaska site.

 

Bailey said after the presentation that the program consistently performs test flights in the Poker Flat area near Fairbanks but is looking to develop other sites, specifically one at the Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s Kodiak Launch Complex.

 

She said she did not yet know if Gov. Bill Walker’s proposal to cut the corporation’s general fund budget would impact the unmanned aircraft program.

 

After running a series of unmanned aircraft missions in 2014, including aiding Funny River firefighting during the summer by identifying blaze hotspots from above, one of the goals for 2015 is building a larger client base, Bailey said. This would hopefully lead to a new industry for Alaska, one that many states don’t yet participate in.

 

“As we attract more and more industry up here, we’re building an industry that isn’t as (volatile as oil),” she said. “You don’t have this roller coaster thing that we’re seeing a lot of right now.”

 

The Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development released a 100-page report at the end of January outlining the best path forward for the state to develop the industry to its advantage.

 

“With global (unmanned aircraft) expenditures of $5.2 billion in 2013, industry analysts expect the market to more than double in the next decade, with a total value of $89 billion over the whole period,” the report states. “As an early leader in the testing and development of (unmanned aircraft) regulations and applications, Alaska has the potential to benefit economically from this emerging sector.”

 

Commerce Division Director Joe Jacobson said in a meeting afterward that’s not to say Alaska is lightyears ahead of other states.

 

“This (report) is just reinforcing that Alaska has some advantages now but this is a very competitive industry,” he said. “We’re by no means above competition.”

 

Another consideration is drones’ involvement in Arctic work. The UAF program is already involved in an Arctic Council subgroup focused on unmanned aircraft use in the region. The United States takes chairmanship of the council in April.

 

While the United States might be lagging behind the rest of the world in Arctic policy, utilizing drones for monitoring and data capture can make up for some of that, Bailey said.

 

“How is the Arctic nation U.S. going to handle these things without infrastructure up there?” she said. “(Unmanned aircraft) can solve that.”

 

Rep. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, is the co-chair of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Legislative Task Force. She said after the presentation that while “it’s exciting to see what the future may hold” in terms of Alaska’s drone industry, “safety and privacy come first.”

 

“FAA handles the safety, but the state can have a say in regard to privacy,” Hughes said.

 

The task force met after Bailey’s presentation to begin talks about privacy. Drones have grown in accessibility and numbers across the country — RadioShack offers a toy model with a built-in video recorder for $50 — and with that has come a greater worry about hovering peeping Toms.

 

Drone privacy made headlines at the end of last month when a small unmanned aircraft — piloted by a drunk federal intelligence agent — made it past White House security and crashed on the president’s lawn.

 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, announced companion bills in the U.S. House and Senate last week urging the FAA to create more hard-and-fast policies for unmanned aircraft use.

 

The bills would also promote public-private partnerships in drone research, allowing universities to accept research funding from the private sector.

 

Bailey said the UAF program has already done this. A 2014 mission was funded with $1 million from Shell Oil Company.

 

The bills also call for FAA to remove “bureaucratic hurdles” to research on some types of medium- and long-range drones, according to a news release from Young’s office.

 

The Alaska task force decided to begin developing a frequently asked questions list for its website, alaskadrones.org.