This August, NIST’s Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division will host a webinar featuring the First Responder UAS Triple Challenge. PSCR Division Chief Dereck Orr will be joined by four panelists to discuss this exciting prize competition, with a total of $720K in awards, to help save lives faster and support advancing first responder search and rescue (SAR) operations.
The challenge allows its contestants to use their ingenuity, hardware knowledge and expertise to create a concept for an unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) prototype through three different challenges.
1. The FastFind challenge will focus on increasing the speed of search and rescue operations where direct visual contact with a potential subject may be obscured.
2. The LifeLink challenge will center on the resilience of network connectivity in remote areas where access to network connectivity may be denied.
3. The Shields Up! challenge relates to enhancing the security of both command and control as well as navigational communications between the drone and its ground station.
Speakers include Michael Ogata and Roger Blaylock of PSCR, Tom Brooks of Michigan State University,and Kurt Barnhart of Kansas State University.