Pegasus Research Consortium

Well, this sums things up nicely (and less than 13 minutes!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F9e2Q7HiOE

And, here is a real life example of how this pans out.

FEMA Asks Volunteers in Colorado Flood to Stop and Go Home

Private drone rescue team ordered by FEMA to shut down volunteer efforts

Stop helping, or be arrested!

QuoteA volunteer group who was helping in the rescue efforts with the Colorado flood have been forced by FEMA to stop and go home.  FEMA even threatened the group with arrest when they wanted to carry on their efforts anyway.

Tech Dirt reported that:

A local company, Falcon UAV, makers of special drones which are built for the government, approved by the FAA, and specialize in using GPS and cameras to generate highly accurate maps, started helping to map the damage with those drones. It was basically making very useful, near real-time maps showing the floods. You'd think that would be useful to, say, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency in charge of helping to coordinate the response to the floods. Instead, FEMA ordered the drones grounded or it would have people from Falcon UAV arrested.[1]

http://intellihub.com/2013/09/18/fema-asks-volunteers-colorado-flood-stop-go-home/

i just had to get more info on this and am still looking



http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/falcon-uav-provides-colorado-flooding-assistance-until-fema-freaks-out

[UPDATED] UAV Provides Colorado Flooding Assistance Until FEMA Freaks Out
By Evan Ackerman




(http://i72.servimg.com/u/f72/13/55/53/83/falcon10.jpg)

UPDATE: We're currently talking with representatives from both FEMA and Falcon UAV  to try and figure out what's going on here. When we've got some new information, we'll post an updated article, and link you to it from here.

There's been some terrible, terrible flooding going on in Colorado. Rain is still falling, making it difficult (or impossible) for airplanes and helicopters to get in and out of the area. Drones can fly, though, and while they're not able to pick up people or drop off supplies, they are able to make damage assessment maps to help relief agencies coordinate their efforts. Or at least, they were, until the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) showed up and grounded them.

Falcon UAV is a Colorado company that makes a fixed-wing UAV (called a Falcon) that uses GPS and cameras to autonomously generate (among other things) highly accurate maps of the ground. The UAV is hand-launched, with an endurance of about an hour, and generally operates between 300 and 1,500 feet above the ground. It has public safety flight approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly in some parts of Colorado. Basically, the point here is that we're not talking about some random dude with a quadrotor flying around taking pictures: the Falcons are designed for (and governmentally approved for) mapping missions in public airspace.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lILQ8bDSMWY


For the last three or four days, Falcon UAV has been volunteering with the Boulder County EOC (Emergency Operations Center) to coordinate mapping flights around the towns of Longmont and Lyons, just northeast of Boulder. This is the kind of thing they end up with, with a turnaround time of just a few hours from launching the drone to delivering a high resolution, georeferenced map:



(http://i72.servimg.com/u/f72/13/55/53/83/inters10.jpg)

It's tiny, I know, but you can see a subset *.gif here and download a full version for Google Earth here.

So yeah, it seems like that would be kind of handy to have, especially since the UAVs can fly even when manned aircraft are grounded by weather, like last Thursday afternoon when the Falcon was the only aircraft that managed to get into the air at all.

And then, over the weekend, FEMA showed up. Falcon UAV tells the story on their blog:

Early Saturday morning Falcon UAV was heading up to Lyons to complete a damage assessment mapping flight when we received a call from our Boulder EOC point of contact who notified us that FEMA had taken over operations and our request to fly drones was not only denied but more specifically we were told by FEMA that anyone flying drones would be arrested.  Not being one to bow to federal bureaucrats we still went up to Lyons to do a site survey for how we can conduct a mission in the near future to provide an adequate damage assessment to this storm ravaged community.

While we were up there we noticed that Civil Air Patrol and private aircraft were authorized to fly over the small town tucked into the base of Rockies.  Unfortunately due to the high terrain around Lyons and large turn radius of manned aircraft they were flying well out of a useful visual range and didn't employ cameras or live video feed to support the recovery effort.  Meanwhile we were grounded on the Lyons high school football field with two Falcons that could have mapped the entire town in less than 30 minutes with another few hours to process the data providing a near real time map of the entire town.

[...] We are very disappointed in FEMAs response to actively prevent the use of UAVs and drone technology when these services were offered for free and at a time when manned helicopters could be used for more critical missions such as evacuations and high mountain search and rescues in inaccessible communities.

Sigh. It's unfortunate that the government seems more than willing to employ UAVs when it comes to military, police, and security operations, but when drones have a chance to go some tangible public good, the reaction is all of a sudden there's this panicked "new technology is scary and bad" response. This is part of the reason why drones have such a bad rap: it's not that they can't be used for helpful things, it's just that in this social and political climate, it's much much harder.

We should stress that we don't have FEMA's side of the story on this, and it's entirely possible (even likely) that there's more going on that we know about. But it's also hard to dispute the facts, which are that Falcon UAV was actively assisting Boulder EOC with valuable information until FEMA showed up and told them to stop. Honestly, I hope that somehow there's more going on, because if not, then the only thing we have to blame is bureaucratic inertia, which is small comfort to the people in Colorado who Falcon UAV could be helping right now.

We've asked FEMA for comment, and we'll update this article if we hear back.

[ Falcon UAV ] via [ DIY Drones ]

Quote from: sky otter on September 20, 2013, 04:19:24 AM
i just had to get more info on this and am still looking

Sky, thanks...I fear it is just as they say....

"bureaucratic inertia"
which is not quite as bad as what took place during
the Navy yard shooting....but its pretty bad.

We used to call it Red Tape a few places I have
worked. I guess thats pretty fitting since lives
are lost over it....sad. Really really sad.

Are People THAT robotic that They would be so vehement about not using drones - against all common sense?  C'mon, I don't buy the "scary new tech" line here.  Drones are all over, even kids' toys, FF sake.

No...  I am certain there is something deeper here; either They want to hide something or They want the greatest number to die.  Love to hear any other theories.

Maybe the inventors group needs a weapons division?

I've realised that the achilles heel of organised repression is the numbers factor. there are more of us "oppresees" than there are opressors.

To obtain a balace in their favour they use technolgy. Rather than attacking the people we can attack the technolgy directly with low tech but well thought out solutions.

A few examples:

Radio is vulnerable to jamming. Surplus radio gear makes an excellent Jammer if you know what you are doing.
Parked vehicles are vulnerable to expanding builders foam being introduced into teh exhaust system via an extended tube on the can.
Locks are no longer useable if you fill the slot with a mixture of araldite and sand (or if you have access to a lot of tiny ball bearings so much the better...) I have heard that a campaign to make banks unable to open one morning using this very method is being organised in my country.
Household bleach can be sprayed... as can other chemicals. (This makes the oppressors have to suit up which makes them less effective as a fighting force. You ever tried warfighting in an NBC suit? I have, and it's really awkward...)
Arranging a revolutionary "event" using the regular methods of communication and then "not turning up" has been done here in the UK with hilarious results. Because THEY expend their energy to turn up all revved up with no "action" at the end of it.
THEY LIE, in order to  try and cover up the weakness of their position.
Remember, they want you to fight their representatives (the army & police etc), where the loss of life can be used to paint the you as the "evil" force in teh propaganda campaign.
You don't have to fight it their way.
Fight the machinery and the organisation itself, not the people caught up in it.

Above all, learn to tell the difference between Good and Evil.

Quote from: Fruitbat on September 20, 2013, 12:28:13 PM
Maybe the inventors group needs a weapons division?

(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/42stargate/04images/Jaffa/Jaffa01_Dendera.jpg)

(http://josephmallozzi.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/img00038.jpg)

(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130322010002/stargate/images/6/62/Raknor_staff_fire.JPG)

I am sure the IG group can figure it out :D