Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

November 30, 2016

UMaine at Presque Isle students map with drones

Drone technology for practical application is getting a boost at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, where students and professors in the geographic information systems program deployed two DJI Phantom-4 drones to take aerial photos that will be used to create a plot map for the town of Mars Hill, the Bangor Daily News reported.

The drones were purchased through funding under the science and technology bond program approved by Maine voters in 2013, according to a news release from the university.

“Drones are among the most important technological advances in remote sensing and GIS,” Chunzeng Wang, a geology professor and head of the GIS lab at the university, told the BDN.

The exercise is of a piece with UMaine’s drone initiatives. In October, UMaine/Augusta began offering Maine's first university-level unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) course.

"There is a strong job market for licensed UAV pilots," UMA President James Conneely said in a prepared statement.

Maine is projected to achieve 5% of the national UAV market, according to Tom Abbott, project manager for the Small UAV Pilot Training Center at UMA.

In 2015, the growing use of drones by architects, engineers and construction firms to gather data prompted legal firm Bernstein Shur to create a drone team to provide legal expertise on evolving rules and regulations governing drone use.

Read more

Bernstein Shur forms team to tackle fast-emerging legal issues involving drones

Humanizing robots and drones

UMaine Augusta drone course takes flight

Sign up for Enews

Comments

Order a PDF