Association for Unarmed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Channel Islands Symposium

On Friday October 23rd was the 2nd annual Symposium for Unmanned Systems. The program began in the Petite Salon on the CSUCI campus, where several panels gave presentations on their individual disciplines. Between panels, the group recessed outside where there were several display booths. President Rush was the opening keynote speaker, and gave several insights toward the university’s commitment to using Remotely Piloted Systems (RPS) for both education, and research. Furthermore he stressed the importance of STEM education, and stated the intent of the university to start an engineering school, working in conjunction with the current efforts in robotics. There were multiple talks about environmental, agricultural and emergency responses uses of unmanned vehicles, through a number of distinguished organizations such as: AeroVironment, the Naval Post-graduate School, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. Our own professor Sean Anderson spoke on behalf of the research that he and CSUCI students have been conducting. Anderson talked about the marine ecology and coral bio-fluorescence research using ROVs, and the aerial mapping of natural resources in the Cook Islands, the oil spill in Santa Barbra, and the other projects that PIRate lab carries out. The central point of view was that RPS are useful tools in better understanding and researching the environment, and can be used to help save people’s lives, especially in the event of disaster.

The outside demonstrations were mainly comprised of the Ventura County Sherriff’s: search and rescue and bomb squad, and our team’s UAV and ROV demonstrations.