When teaching Unmanned Aerial Systems, UAS, it is important that the students are provided the opportunity to practice and hone their flying skills by gaining flight hours. To reflect this I have included a flight component in each of the courses I have taught, the nature of which depended on the course objectives and available budget. This was immediately implemented in the junior level lab section, that I began teaching in 2016 and continued to teach through 2018, using custom built 450mm, 525mm, and 650mm aircraft. While this was a beneficial addition to the course it was the first time many of the students had flown a UAS outside, and I believed this to be inadequate. When I was provided the opportunity to design the introductory, 100 level, courses for the UAS program in 2017 I used it to begin integrating flight as early as possible. Due to budgetary concerns I was only able to integrate micro scale flight time into the course using the Blade Nano QX. While much smaller than enterprise UAS, and much less capable, these aircraft provided new freshmen the opportunity to begin familiarizing themselves with the flight characteristics of multirotor UAS. In the fall of 2019 I was moved into the 200 level courses and again given the opportunity to re-design the two courses at this level. I focused the course around the Mavic 2 Pro and was provided with six Mavic 2 Pro aircraft to use in instruction with Spring 2020 set as the semester for flight training to begin in earnest. The move to remote learning in light of COVID-19 stopped flight training operations in the Spring of 2020. While unfortunate, this provided me time to assess the state of the UAS flight training environment, correct problems, and preempt others before Spring 2021.
One of the first issues encountered was with the expansion of potential UAS pilots. Prior to spring 2021 students were provided training and certified by instructors on an individual or small group basis. While this worked relatively well for small class sizes, and for aircraft such as the Blade Nano or custom-built quadcopters, it was not sufficient for larger classes using a comparatively complex aircraft. A standard training approach was developed for the Mavic 2 Pro, Matrice M210, and Matrice M600 and will receive their own post in the future. Even without a semester of flight operations it was clear that six Mavic 2 Pros, used as the core of the training fleet, would not be sufficient. To preempt this issue I requested that we purchase 14 additional Mavic 2 Pro aircraft, bringing the total up to 20, and 80 batteries so that each aircraft could be sent out with 4 at a time, enough for 1 hour of flight time. Additionally, since the Mavic 2 Pro is not considered an Enterprise UAS I pushed to allow the fleet of research UAS to be made available for training. While this is less than ideal, I would have preferred a separate research and training fleet, it would allow students to begin gaining Enterprise UAS time and increase the number of trained pilots available for research flights. Both of these requests were granted and the training fleet increased from 6 to 32 aircraft between the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters. Once a large class has been trained on a complex UAS and a fleet large enough to accommodate demand exists, the question becomes how will these students access the aircraft? Previously the low number of pilots allowed instructors to either fly just during class time or to approve small numbers of pilots and loosely track their flights on a sign out/sing in sheet. Increasing both the number of pilots and available aircraft made the previous solution unworkable, and demanded a new system to ensure safe operation without reducing access.
Dispatch Department
The first step to ensuring that UAS flight operations were conducted safely and students were allowed extensive access to the training fleet, was to create a stand alone dispatch department. This department was under my supervision and consisted of three undergraduate students working 25 hours per week. These students were provided with a Standard Operating Procedure, which will be discussed in depth below, and training for how to apply the procedures. Creating a stand alone department to handle fleet management relieved faculty members of this duty, and provided a uniform approach that could be developed over time alongside the needs of the program.
Physical Infrastructure
When creating the dispatch SOP the first area I focused on was the physical infrastructure. This decision was made to ensure that any practices that were developed were able to be performed in the space with the resources available at the time.
Batteries
One of the first questions I was confronted with was, how will the massive amount of batteries be stored and charged for use? When all counted the UAS training fleet consists of 147 batteries between the Mavic 2 Pro, Matrice M210, Matrice M600, and previously unmentioned C-Astral Bramor PPX. Batteries for the Matrice M600 and Bramor PPX each already had their own storage containers which made them easy to deal with, but still left 103 batteries without a home. At the same time I had a student, who would later become one of the dispatch workers, interested in getting involved over the 2020 winter break. I tasked him with creating a modular battery tray for our Mavic 2 Pro and Matrice M210 battery sets, a task in which he excelled. Using these trays the batteries were able to be stored in the manner shown in the image below.
This setup allowed all 103 remaining batteries to be stored orderly in a 27 square inch area. Due to the compact nature of the storage the other half of the table was able to be used for charging these batteries; with the ability to charge twenty-seven Mavic 2 Pro and eight M210 batteries simultaneously.
The setup shown in the two images above proved wildly successful in allowing dispatch personnel to: rapidly see how many batteries were available, get aircraft batteries recharged quickly between flights, track battery cycles, and track battery charging.
Vehicle Storage
Once battery charging and storage was planned for the next task was to ensure the vehicles themselves were stored in a sensible manner. This question would have normally been resolved before the battery question. However, the large numbers of batteries were difficult to manage without a storage system, and the vehicles were relatively easy to deal with in the short term using an interim solution. Already present in the room provided was a large locker system that fit the Mavic 2 Pro hard cases very well, and the aircraft were each placed in their own locker. The larger aircraft were all stored in a small closet within the room, labeled as "UAV Storage Room" in the figure below.
While initially an interim solution the storage system put in place worked well so it was standardized and kept. Each Mavic 2 Pro was assigned a permanent locker and each locker was labeled accordingly. The UAV storage room was used to keep the two C-Astral Bramors, five parachutes for the C-Astral Bramors, 2 Matrice M210s, 2 Matrice M600s, and the M600 battery case.
Dispatch Board
Between the entrance and battery area is the Dispatch Board. This board contains three separate sections 1) the aircraft section on the left 2) the monthly dispatch schedule on the top right 3) the weekly weather chart on the bottom right.
The aircraft side has a section for each individual aircraft that dispatch is responsible for with each aircraft type being assigned a specific color. In this section the individual checking out an aircraft puts their name and flight location in the box associated with that aircraft. Dispatch employees keep track of this section to ensure that it matches the paperwork provided by the users, and when maintenance is required they will put that the aircraft is unavailable in the appropriate location. In the provided image it can be seen that Mavic 2 Pro B is removed from service due to needing registration. This section allows a user to quickly determine if a specific aircraft that they want is currently available, or if there is an available aircraft of the type required. If a user is attempting to plan a future operation they can look at the top right of the board to review the monthly schedule. Whenever an aircraft request is received the dispatch employees will add a mark on the appropriate day, multiple days if the aircraft is checked out for multiple days. These marks are left on the calendar for the entire month to allow the users and dispatch employees to get a rough idea of usage trends over the month. In the image shown we can see that Wednesdays are the most popular day for aircraft flights while Mondays and weekends have a higher availability. At the end of each month the dispatch employees will erase the calendar, add in the day numbering, and add in any requests submitted for that month. The final part of the board, the weekly weather chart. This chart is refreshed each Monday by dispatch employees, and updated throughout the week as the weather changes. This section was added to the board to allow users to quickly assess the forecasted weather for requests in the future. While the weather forecasts will not prevent a user from submitting a dispatch request, but it does allow them to judge the likelihood of being able to perform their flights. Users were also informed that this portion of the dispatch board was not a sufficient weather briefing, and that all pilots were responsible for collecting their own weather information before flying.
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