Delta Regional Authority awards ULM professor $90,000 grant to teach people how to operate UAS

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In an effort to meet the growing demand of using UAS for commercial and practical applications, the Delta Regional Authority (DRA) has created the program, “Workforce Development: Training the Trainer Using Unmanned Aerial Systems.”

Through the program, DRA recently awarded a $90,000 grant to Sean Chenoweth, associate professor of geosciences at the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM), to teach people in northeast Louisiana how to operate a UAS. Once those people are trained UAS operators, they can go out and train others.

“UAS operations have a broad range of applications, such as precision agriculture, infrastructure inspection, conservation, search and rescue missions,” Chenoweth states in the grant application, via The News-Star.

“There is a need to train groups of UAS users across several industries with a limited amount of resources.”

ULM will serve as the center of operations, with 10 parishes— Union, Morehouse, West Carroll, East Carroll, Richland, Madison, Caldwell, Franklin, Tensas and Ouachita— in the project.

“One of the main things we want to do is get in touch with ag groups in high schools, such as 4-H and FFA,” Chenoweth says. “We want to get young people interested in agriculture.”

According to Chenoweth, the money will be used for equipment, as he points out that one UAS can cost $2,000 or higher, while the camera can cost $9,000.

The way that the project will work is that it will identify people and groups in northeast Louisiana that would benefit from having UAS as part of their operations. A technical person within that group would be chosen for the initial training, and then they would be able to train their groups.

A goal of the project is to identify who in Northeast Louisiana would benefit from UAS in their work, such as farmers, law enforcement and insurance entities.

“It’s important to reach as many people as possible in northeast Louisiana,” Chenoweth says.

“There is incredible potential in this technology and applications for use in many businesses and industries. By moving forward with this project, we are keeping up with the technology, instead of chasing it.”

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