The UAS Nexus: How did we get here?

Below is a nexus diagram of some of the crucial fields and discoveries necessary for modern commercial unmanned aerial systems to exist, and some areas it is currently impacting. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) exists at the cornerstone of several fields. At it's core, the name of UAS describes most of the key requirements to be considered a UAS: A system, usually one that serves a specific task, is airborne without a human physically contained on/in the airborne vehicle. However, each of the three criteria listed in its name: 1)Unmanned 2) Aerial vehicle 3)Acting as a system, were developed independently of each other. The number of fields responsible for these developments, either directly through technological innovation or inspiring creating through necessity, can be very lengthy. Ultimately, it required a plethora of advancements in various areas of research and technology to enable commercial UAS to exist at all. This Nexus is focused on the technological developments, and the fields that produced those developments, responsible for conventional UAS. It is important to understand that this nexus is NOT all including. For UAS to have gotten where it is today, the technological innovations had to be secured by generations of aviation methodology advancement, legal precedents, ethical understandings of privacy and property rights, and decades of development in the radio controlled vehicle hobby. These other facets not represented in the nexus are as important all the facets included within it.

Personally, I am most interested in applications and operations of unmanned aircraft. While I do appreciate the engineering discoveries, many of which are embedded here, I ultimately am most fascinated by the development of sensors and what that means for people trying to utilize the technology for a specific task.

I highly recommend downloading the image so it is much easier to read:

https://purdue0-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/ehockrid_purdue_edu/EU8D2rAue3JElBLpZ_0rkogBug5BhE3ASWGF8n6e9cQDjQ?e=IxhI0j

The figure is designed around the concept of increasing understanding. Things towards the bottom of the chart are the most fundamental level understanding needed to produce a UAS. As you go higher up, the concepts within the chart get increasingly specific ending at applications for UAS. The color scheme follows this trend with the most fundamental being green, and increasingly complex concepts becoming more orange. It is important to understand that the arrows indicate where knowledge or inspiration came from on the tail end, and what the outcome of the interaction was on the pointed end. Obviously, fields in the base understanding category impact technologies in the refined technology category, for example, but it is implied that knowledge is carried through from the previously connected nodes. 

Hopefully, it is clear that technological progress is the key visualization in this nexus. It is often agreeable that UAS is the accumulation of a few recent major technological discoveries, the technologies embedded in the "refined technology" category. However, behind those technologies is decades of study in peripheral fields. Likewise, those fields are derivatives of more fundamental basal fields. Ultimately, with this understanding, it is clear that UAS is not the outcome of a few recent technologies but the embodiment many years of understanding. 

Once again, operational, legal, and human aspects of a UAS were omitted. This was due to the inconsistencies in their inclusion. This chart, as it stands, would be consistent regardless of geographic conditions of individuals reading it. Laws, aviation methodologies, and operating agencies all change based on region; but the development of UAS as captured here is standard virtually everywhere. The other thing that was omitted is the plethora of potential applications not contained by the broad uses listed in the nexus. There is simply too many ways drones could impact markets and cultures to list them all.   

This nexus is not immune to change. It is entirely possible that laws effecting navigational equipment, such as GPS, or autonomous vehicle operation could change how this nexus is structured in the future. 

My First Post

 Welcome to my Blog

My name is Evan Hockridge and I am a Southern California native pursuing my bachelors degree in Unmanned Aerial Systems(UAS) at Purdue University. This blog serves two roles. The first, is to be a component of my UAS senior capstone by effectively housing my project information and results for the course. The second, is to be a collective resource for my knowledge and passion of UAS up until this point.

Background in UAS

Beginning with Engineering

My path in the UAS industry has changed a few times since I joined the degree program a few years ago. My first exposure to true industry work outside of classes began with an internship with Northrop Grumman the summer after my first year of college. There, I worked as an engineering intern largely focused on utilizing additive manufacturing techniques to develop structurally viable plastic mounts for medium-sized UAVs. While I certainly developed my engineering skills during that summer, I certainly felt something was missing. I knew, largely because of my background in manned aviation before college, that I wanted to be on the operational side of UAS. I thought maybe working in engineering would change that, but it became clear I was not satisfied with the idea of being an engineer my entire life. So, I began looking for how I could work on the operational side.

Phone case I made during my internship with Northrop Grumman. Fortunately, they had some extra filament to practice with!

A Love for Science

When I returned to campus I knew I wanted to work on the operational side of UAS, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do that. The one thing I realized is that I would need to find an industry I was passionate about and I would probably need to understand the basics of that industry. So I started taking classes for certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation at Purdue. In addition I began taking an assortment of classes to built a solid knowledge base. What I found was that I loved the idea of using unmanned aircraft to assist in natural disaster situations. More specifically, calculating risk of developing property in specific areas. Due to this, I started a minor in Earth and atmospheric science. During that process I realized I truly love the natural sciences and wanted to attend graduate school so that I could better understand how to use UAS to study the natural world.

Since the Discovery 

Over the past two years I have attempted to work with a variety of people aiming to use unmanned aircraft in science. This has led to research opportunities with forestry, agriculture, oceanography, and marine ecology. I quickly became aware of all the potential advantages of using unmanned aircraft as a remote sensing tool versus satellite and manned aircraft methods. Due to this, my focus for sometime now has been on mastering data collection, processing, and analysis methods. I have developed experience on a variety of software include Photoscan Pro, Pix4D, Erdas IMAGINE, ENVI, ArcMap, and AirMap as I learned how to utilize the data I have collected. I have also learned how to use the statistical programming language, R, to analyze drone remote sensing data with methods such as linear regression, kNN, and RandomForest machine learning classification models. Ultimately, my goal is to be fully capable at completing and planning a UAS mission from sensor integration through spatial statistical analysis.

Why UAS?

Ultimately, I decided I did not want to become an airline pilot, my childhood dream, for a variety of reasons. One of which was that I was afraid I wouldn't be challenged enough in the long run and left to be bored, unsatisfied with my impact on the world. The opening of the new UAS major at Purdue made me realize I could be creative in a new field without having to sacrifice my life long love for aviation. So, I took the risk and switched my major to UAS. I honestly have not looked back since.

My Future Career with UAS

It is difficult to say for certain what my career will look like, but it would also be incorrect to say I do not have a "Plan A". As of now, I intend to enter academia as a researcher. This upcoming year, I will attend graduate school at one of several possible institutions. More than likely I will be studying ecology (nearly all the PhD programs I am interested in are ecology related programs) focusing on how drones can be used in a specific ecosystem. My focus will either be on ultrahigh resolution phenology related projects, or involve ecosystem services. This is because I am very interested in measuring change (phenology) and how that change will impact what humans gain out of their surrounding ecosystems (ecosystem services). At the moment, it is hard to say where I will be headed, but I am excited either way.

While I am sure I will change as a person during graduate school, I am very interested in becoming a professor because I love performing research, interacting with a variety of people, the high level of job freedom, and the prospect of teaching.

Ultimately, I am sure it will be a long exciting ride. Hopefully this blog highlights the fun parts.