UAS News Podcast — 2012-07-24
Audio not available on SoundCloud — full transcript below.
Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome to the UAE. Welcome to the UAS News Podcast series, Back to School. This is the third installment of this series. Today we have North Carolina State University on and we have Kyle Snyder and Dr.
Larry Silverbird. I realized that the opening song was not your fight song but I could not find a short version of your fight song for this podcast. Anyway, welcome gentlemen. How's it going out there?
Very well, thanks Patrick. Everything is going good. You have to tell the guys over there in the band that they have to put a shorter clip of your fight song on the internet. Next time I can download it and have it for you guys when you come on.
Alright, well I don't know if you've listened to some of the earlier installments of this podcast series but basically the idea here is I wanted to get you gentlemen on and I wanted you to speak to the program that you guys offer in the unmanned technologies field. What I would like you guys to do and I think we'll start with Kyle if you could for the audience. Give us a little bio about yourself Kyle and tell people how you got here. I can try to do that here in a couple of seconds.
I'm originally from North Carolina. I have a math and computer science degree from Catawba College, a small school over here. After a roundabout path through NASA, Lockheed Martin, Georgia Tech, I actually spent a couple of years at AUVSI headquarters as the Director of Knowledge Resources. Moved out to Middle Tennessee State for the last year and a half.
Started the UAS program out there. Had the opportunity to come home, moved back to North Carolina about two months ago. And now the Next Generation Air Transportation Center Director here at NC State, coordinating UAS activities across the state as they pertain to next gen and also growing other next gen technologies and integration and adoption across the state. Well that's pretty impressive.
And Dr. Silverberg, could you give us a little bio about yourself?
Sure, happy to. I don't think I can beat that. But I've been a professor at NC State since 1984. So I've been here a while.
So while Kyle's been moving around, I've just been here in Raleigh, North Carolina. But I'm now the Associate Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. And I work, I do, you know, NC State's a research one university. So besides having classes in the aerospace area, we do research in the aerospace area.
And I do work in the UAV area. Well, excellent. A couple years ago, I guess I was, I don't know, I guess 2010 I came out to Elizabeth City, to the TECOM facility out there. And I will say that humidity, I'm not really used to that.
And then coming out of the desert there in Umastan and enjoying the humidity, the first couple of days I was like, oh, this isn't so bad. But after about a week, I was like, okay, you know, send me back to my killer bees in Umastan. But anyway, beautiful country out there. You know, you guys are lucky to be out there on the eastern seaboard.
The humidity is a little something to get used to. But besides that, it's great. And I've checked out the website and your university looks very nice. The campus looks pretty.
Okay. Well, you know, I guess we're going to launch right into the meat and potatoes of the program. And so the first question that I have, and this is a list of questions I've been kind of asking everyone, kind of level playing field type of thing is, and maybe we'll go, Kyle, you could answer first. And if you want to add something, Dr.
Silverberg, you can go after. But what is, what's your educational philosophy?
I can tell you in the time I've spent at universities and teaching and working with students, my philosophy has always been to expose them to absolutely as much as possible, especially undergrads, to say, here's what's going on, whether it's research, it's operations, whatever discipline it is, let's see how much we can throw at them. And when I had the opportunity to come over here and work with the aerospace engineering program, I was delighted to know that's actually NC State's philosophy. So I'd actually let Dr.
Silverberg talk more about kind of some of the plans and how the university works. So, you know, just for those of you who don't know NC State, NC State has about 35,000 students. So we're a pretty big school. We have the fourth largest engineering program in the U.S.
So lots of students. NC State has kind of a hands-on culture. So what that means is a lot of labs, literally hands-on labs, a lot of interaction with the students, open door policies. Students get a lot of help.
So kind of from an educational point of view, students tend to like that. So I think, you know, from an educational point of view, what is our philosophy just to give the students the fundamentals and to work with them as closely as we can on all of that?
Well, that's good. I like the hands-on approach. I definitely think as we move forward, people are going to have to probably put together their own one-off systems or buy systems and modify them for like certain niche applications. So that's probably good.
And then, you know, this is kind of a follow-up question to that. And some of this ground has been covered, but I'm going to hit the question anyway. How is your school different or differ from other schools?
And I know that you kind of touched on that, Dr. Silverberg, but maybe we could expand on that a little bit more. Yeah, I can expand a little bit. So what hands-on actually means as it pertains to UAV would be the aerospace students, for example, are getting a year-long senior design experience where they're building UAVs.
So we've been building UAVs in aerospace engineering since 1981. They were actually moving from more RC, actually it was really more RC vehicles, and now we're moving toward autonomous vehicles. So, you know, that would be an example of where our school is a little bit different. Also, I don't know what other schools you've talked to, but NC State is what we call a Research One university.
So the faculty that are in the classroom are the faculty who are doing research in these areas. So students are being taught by faculty who work in composites, electronics, different kinds of areas that pertain to UAV. So it's a little bit of a different education in that regard. Well, that's interesting.
Okay, well, and two questions kind of came out of that one for me. Do you have your own design philosophy?
I mean, are you guys, are you picking a mission or are you saying, okay, well, we're picking a class as far as size of unmanned aircraft? I mean, there's different ways that people go about this. Sure. And one of them said, well, you know, we'll go ahead.
So we have, in the year-long senior design, we have actually an aerosenior design and a mechanical senior design. In the aerosenior design, yes, we pick a mission, requirements, and they change from year to year. And in the aerosenior design, the students will break up into teams. A team is composed of about eight students.
They'll go through all of the designs, paper design in the fall semester, and then they build and test and fly in the spring semester. And every, like I said, every single year, you know, it's different. So we might have one year where it's a vertical takeoff, or we might have another year where it's, where we have to land in water, something like that. So every single year, you're going to have a unique set of requirements that the students have to respond to.
And are those modules built around, you know, like a scientific mission or a business case, or it varies, or? Well, the, we have, so for example, in our senior design on the mechanical side, everything is sponsored by, is corporate sponsored. And so every single one of those projects will be, you know, will respond to some particular need that the company has. Okay.
Well, it's just kind of, you know, and the reason I ask that question is there's a couple of different philosophies. You know, one of them is I'm out here and I'm, you know, we provide the pickup truck. We're a load of the pickup truck. And you bring whatever your, you know, payload is or whatever, and we fly that around.
And, you know, and that's one design philosophy. I'm more of the school of thought, and I'm not saying that you have to, like, drill it down to the laser beam. But, you know, pick a mission and let's design something to fulfill that mission and maybe some ancillary missions. But that's why I brought that up.
Now, the other question that came in. Well, your point is, you know, you really are starting from scratch, and you're going through a basic process from scratch and kind of narrowing it down. So you come up with all sorts of scenarios, and you kind of go from the most, you do start from scratch and then you kind of narrow it all down, and then you get to competing designs and you argue about them all. Then you go through a design.
Then you go through a detailed design, and that's all in the fall semester. Then in the spring semester, you're building, testing, flying. And if you want to graduate, it better fly. No pressure.
Yeah, no pressure. And the other question that came out of that is, are you guys building your own autopilots, or are you using someone else's autopilot and writing code, or does it just vary?
We've been using, lately we've been using the Picolos, and then, you know, a little bit of code to go with it. Okay. Okay. And I like to ask this question because this also varies by institution.
What does your school consider for admissions? And this, again, is, you know, I'd like to focus it towards the prospective student, if you could. Well, sure. So, you know, NC State in Raleigh, North Carolina, it's the biggest engineering program in the state, and so we attract, you know, the students who want to go into engineering, they tend to, if their grades are good enough and they have about a, I think the averages are close to a 4.0 GPA, then they get into NC State.
We have a little bit of a problem in this state in that we don't really have, our school is not big enough for the needs, so I think the requirements are a little higher than they should be. Let's see. We admit, we actually will admit about 5,000 students into NC State, we'll admit 5,000 students into engineering every year, which around half, around 2,500 will actually come. That's a lot of people.
So you've got to have, you know, the highest ATEs and good GPA, and you guys aren't horsing around over there as far as the admissions process is going. And that's fine. Let me see, what type of graduate do you hope to generate through this program?
What's, you know, I guess what's the philosophy? It's real simple. We want students who, we want students for whom our employers are as satisfied as possible. I mean, that's the name of the game.
We want employer satisfaction. And NC State among Research 1 universities is fourth in the U.S. in employer satisfaction. Okay, well that's good, because that's another question that I had later on down the road, and maybe we'll just, we'll hit that right now since you kind of touched on it.
You know, do you give the students any help with job placement or is there a career center or, and can I assume that the bigger manufacturers use you guys as a resource for a pool of prospective employees or? Yeah, we have, so, you know, again, you know, NC State, pretty big school, 35,000 students. So we have job fairs. We have, students can go and meet with, there's a group of folks that will help them with the job opportunities, but actually a lot of the folks will come to NC State for the job fairs.
It's amazing how many people are out there in the job fairs. Yeah, bigger than a lot of conferences. And as we're building up some of the resources and services that I'm trying to offer now through the NGAT Center, we're also going to be forming relationships with the UAS industry, the manufacturers, the service organizations, and providing internships and connections through that is why I'm tied to the area of the group here too. And also I should add relating to jobs is about close to a third of our students do co-op.
That means that they're spending four years on an engineering degree, it's about five years, and one year of that is at a company. All right, well that's, well is that kind of like a paid internship type of thing that last year?
Yeah, a co-op is kind of like paid internship but structured so that it's a whole year. And it's like one semester on, one semester off, that kind of thing. Well that's interesting. And you know, yeah, moving into the future as far as jobs is concerned, I mean it seems that a lot of these contracting companies that are springing up are constantly asking, hey, you know, we need deployers.
And I'm just interested, are you hearing from any of these contracting firms that are looking for people to deploy and fly, let's say, in Afghanistan or Africa or anywhere else? Are you seeing any of that?
I hear on a weekly basis of somebody saying, I need an analyst, I need an operator that understands how to fly a small UAS up to a big one, that understands how to look at full motion imagery, knows how to look at what does IR data mean. And then people also on the other side saying, so if we go and build a service, what kind of students do you have that might be able to do X, whether it's integration, is it maintenance?
And that's really kind of where we're trying to get to is the future I see for this industry is either well-rounded engineers that know how to do, they can go bend metal like a traditional mechanical engineering can, but also understands computer science, in fact they can do sensor integration, electronics. They also know how to do the analyst role. If you've got the person that's safe flying an agriculture mission, how do they know how to look at the data and give that report the result to the farmer?
Why did he fly it? Okay, this is why I flew it, this is the information I got. You know, let me package it in a way that you understand it. Right.
Well, you asked me about, you know, really about NC State, and the subject here today, I guess, you know, we're talking about NC State, but we really have a network of universities around the state who do a wonderful job supporting all of this activity. And so NC State is really a big engineering school, but we have a lot of smaller programs all around the state that support us and who can offer a lot of unique things that we can't offer. Yeah, I noticed that it kind of spiders out and there's some other resources there.
Well, I didn't want to get too far into the weeds, but I do want, again, the prospective students to know what they're looking at as far as the on-ramp to this business. And you guys kind of answered that and what's going on in the future. And one other question I had for Kyle, and you're at the NGET Center there, are you guys doing anything with ADS-B?
Are you doing any testing out there? Are we right now?
No. We have done two ADS-B demonstrations back in 2008, so clearly before I got here. I am actively looking at how we can integrate ADS-B into our UAS operations program. We're looking at establishing a training site, a test site over on the coast, looking at how we can get access to some ADS-B boxes to put on our UAVs so we can do the safe integration and see how those all work together.
This is one of our research. One other question. How far are you guys from Kitty Hawk?
About three and a half hours, give or take. Might be a little bit of a drive. Okay. Well, I was just curious.
You're on the cutting edge here of unmanned aviation, and Kitty Hawk is kind of down the road. You're right. And that's why, like Dr. Silverberg was saying, why we work with some of our other institutions across the state.
The range space we're looking at is over in Hyde County, North Carolina, over on the coast, about an hour away from Kitty Hawk. Working with the city-state. As you know, out there in Elizabeth City, it's only about 45 minutes from Kitty Hawk. They've put up our operational program, so that's where our pilots and our air traffic control training is happening here.
Through the NGATS Center, we actually have access to all the resources that our other state institutions offer. So when we're talking about working with new students, both undergraduate and graduate students, we've got the opportunity here to say we've got research that we're being done either in the classroom and with the departments or over in the NGATS Center. That allows mixture with our other universities and our other university resources, too. So other students and equipment.
I just like that proximity of the new and the old. There's the birth of aviation out here. Now we have the birth of the new aviation. So that's kind of a cool thing.
I agree with my marketing. That should be. That would be great. The two pictures, the B&W and then the new picture today.
I guess that kind of segues right into the next question. What types of students have you attracted?
Are they coming to you and what are they saying? Are these people falling into it and, oh, hey, I didn't know this was here and this is great?
Or do you have, I notice there's a lot of passionate people here in this field and they're like, I want to get in here and I want to learn this and I want to be in this industry. What types of students are you guys attracting?
Well, you know, in the aerospace area, that's exactly what happens. These students are just nuts for getting involved in this kind of stuff. And the newest trend is really more and more students before they start college getting involved in just building their own RC airplanes and things like that. So we're seeing a lot of these hobbyists pop up.
And that's going to be real important for the industry. Involved early on and getting that kind of experience. It's a great thing that kids can do with their parents. And so we're seeing that kind of enthusiasm now.
When I was at MTSU and I'm hoping I can bring some of the same luck over here, the more we're out talking about this, the more we're pointing people towards the big conferences like AUVSI, Unmanned Systems North America as we're hosting local events, whether that's flight demonstrations or just knowledge exchanges. There's so much potential in this industry for just about any person with any kind of interest, whether it is engineering, is it computer science, is it operational, is it analyst role?
Is it a business development, business major that's interested in and just thinks airplanes are cool? Which we all do, of course. Those are the kind of students I've had luck recruiting into these programs before. So very rarely do I find somebody that doesn't think this is just a growing field or has some interest here.
I'd agree with that. I mean, even I took my niece, she's a student at UCLA and she's a poli sci. And I took her to the last chapter meeting out there, my Silicon Valley chapter, and she's adjusting her major to be more, let's say, technical. I just I never knew any of this was out here.
Nobody ever, this is great. So even in her field, their technology and the laws and policy and the rest of it, so it does overlay onto a lot of different majors. And the exposure as the younger kids get exposed to this, I even mentor over at the high school. I got two college kids coming back and they're just like, oh, this is great.
We got the flying things and we got the underwater and we got the ground vehicles and we got, you know, and they're soaking it up like sponges. They didn't even realize it was all out there and they're loving it. So I agree with you. Very passionate about this technology.
My thing is, and I keep beating this drum, is I want to see these kids be able to monetize robotics and unmanned technologies. And, you know, I'm hitting that drum and I want to do that. You guys are helping there. One of the things I've seen that's been kind of interesting is the growth of the high school robotics programs like FIRST and BEST and some of those.
I've spoken at the FIRST conference or the FIRST competition before and I've actually told those students that I'm jealous of what they've got. And they're like, stop, you play with these things all the time. I'm like, yeah, but if I'd have had them in high school, imagine where we'd be today. The encouraging piece of all that is I've got a three-year-old home.
So where he's going to be when he's in high school and the toys we're going to have to play with are even more encouraging. So that's kind of how we're trying to get it out there. The message is the same message you're sharing. It's how are we going to take these things forward?
How are we going to put them in every classroom, in everybody's house and actually make it useful? So there's still technology to be developed and there's still rules to be developed. I think some of the exciting parts of this is we don't really know all the applications, right?
So we can imagine. But oh my gosh, there's going to be so many things are going to pop up from this that no telling. I agree with that. I talk to people all the time and I've been at this for a while and they go, oh, hey, I got this idea for this and I want to do this.
And I'm like, all right, sounds good. I never thought of that one. So I get that all the time. And I do think when the regulations finally hit, that's when this will kind of mushroom and people go, oh, well, I could do this with it.
And I'm really looking forward. I have to say I'm really looking forward to that day when this technology can be applied to help us live better lives. And I keep telling people I even think that this technology is more transformative than the green technology. May not broadcast to as many people off the bat, but there are so many applications for this, especially in the agriculture and private and public asset management and fishing.
And I could go on for 20 minutes. I don't want to stay on track, so I'm going to come back to it. But one other question I did have for you, a lot of these guys I have noticed are here, there and everywhere. Do you guys offer any online education?
Do you see that coming in the future or is it more of a traditional curriculum you're going to stick with? Well, we're at NC State, we'll probably be sticking mostly to the traditional curriculum, I would say. But we do have a large distance ed program. But a lot of the schools in the state are going to be offering lots of distance ed educational programs, certificate programs, all sorts of things like that.
So I think we're going to see a growth to respond to some of these needs. We already have a – this is not the main group of people, but at the graduate level we already offer most distance ed classes in engineering. Distance ed classes in engineering in the US. So hundreds of classes.
But that doesn't really respond to this. Actually, I think here you're talking about a different group of people. And we don't really have a lot of plans on that. And it really is all going to – we have the infrastructure and a lot of the schools have the infrastructure.
It really just depends on the demand. So as more groups of people mobilize and create certificate programs around the state, we're going to be working on a lot of that. I think we'll be able to develop more distance ed programs to reach these groups of people. Right.
And that's one of our big challenges as we're trying to address this industry and look and see where the growth is going to be. How do we fit the needs here and how wide this spectrum really is?
We're working tightly with the Center for Earth Observation here that's looking at starting a certificate program for geospatial intelligence. How does that align with the program here for aerospace engineering?
Working with some of our universities and community colleges down around Fayetteville, how can we support the returning soldier now that's coming back with 2,000 hours of flight time in a shadow or a MQ-9? What do we do with him?
How do we get him a degree in UAS that fits his interest and where the future industry is going? So we're looking to say how much of that can we put online?
How much of that can we distribute across our other universities? How can we tailor these programs to fit that emerging need?
There seems to be a lot of conversation about this, people requesting it around the state. I think it's kind of at a conversation stage right now, so I think we're going to be seeing more of it, but it's still early. Well, I definitely think you get a lot of guys that are sitting out there in Afghanistan, ex-military, GI Bill, I want to stay in this field. I really find it compelling and interesting.
They have skill sets, you know, we're talking about the intel part of that. They have skill sets, they've been watching the full motion video, they've been watching the common operator's picture, they had a geo-referenced photos, recognized threat behaviors, you know, on and on. Anyway, you know, this is a compelling conversation, but we are almost out of time, which it's funny how fast it goes. I was wondering if you guys would like to give the website address where people could come and look at what you offer?
Sure. The website for NC State is just www.ncsu.edu. So, you know, for North Carolina State University, www.ncsu.edu would be the website for NC State. And we're mechanical and aerospace engineering, so mechanical engineering is www.mae.ncsu.edu.
But really, I'd recommend folks who are interested in NC State just to go to the NC State website and then have some fun navigating. I'd agree with that. Okay, well, gentlemen, we're out of time. Thank you very much for being on.
Good luck, Godspeed, we'll talk to you later. Thanks, Patrick. Take care.