MVCC selected for FAA drone program

ROME, N.Y. — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) selected Mohawk Valley Community College (MVCC) for its Unmanned Aircraft Systems-Collegiate Training Initiative (UAS-CTI) program.

Through this collaboration, the college will deliver up-to-date training to match the requirements of the National Airspace System to students in the remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) degree program.

The initiative will be in effect for three years. To qualify, colleges must offer bachelor’s or associate degrees in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or a degree with a minor, concentration, or certificate in UAS. The curriculum must cover various aspects of UAS training including hands-on flight practice, maintenance, uses, applications, privacy concerns, safety, and federal policies concerning UAS.

“We are only one of a few colleges in the country that provides a comprehensive program in advanced RPAS technology, through which students acquire skills to design, build, test, fly, and apply remotely piloted aircraft,” MVCC Professor Bill Judycki said in a press release. “We are the only college in the country that trains students to fly both a sophisticated multirotor and fixed-wing aircraft capable precision centimeter accuracy in photogrammetry and LIDAR, as well as flight training on a $250,000 flight simulator.”

MVCC’s RPAS program prepares students for emerging jobs in agriculture, inspections, and emergency services using the latest mapping and photogrammetry software and remote sensing packages such as thermal, multispectral, and LiDar 3D. Students also use MVCC’s FABLab to explore modeling and fabrication of designs created using AutoCAD and learn about global positioning systems (GPS), geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing capabilities used in RPAS operations.

The college is a member of the NUAIR Alliance, a coalition of 200 entities working together to operate and oversee RPAS testing in three states. Headquartered in Syracuse, NUAIR supports the RPAS test site at Griffiss International Airport in Rome.

Funding for the work at MVCC and its partners to align specific job competencies for one-semester microcredentials comes from a National Science Foundation award. The award also funded the purchase of a Microdrone mdLiDAR1000 and sensors that enable agriculture and infrastructure inspection and a supercomputer for flight-data processing.