It has been a busy year at AUVSI - in addition to planning the world's largest trade show dedicated to the unmanned systems industry, the association has seen an exponential increase in interest in the unmanned systems industry from across multiple channels.
In response to concerns raised after Congress passed a bill in February ordering the Federal Aviation Administration to mandate airspace for all unmanned air systems in late 2015, AUVSI released its "Unmanned Aircraft System Operations Industry Code of Conduct." AUVSI's advocacy team prepared this code, which many AUVSI members have signed and agreed to adopt. The code, which serves as a user checklist for operations, breaks down UAS operation requirements into three sections: safety, professionalism and respect.
"Each theme and its associated recommendations represent a common-sense approach to UAS operations and address many of the concerns expressed by the public and regulators," the document states.
AUVSI's Knowledge Department has worked diligently to release to association members the AUVSI Knowledge Vault. Currently live at vault.auvsi.org, this website will serve as a one-stop location to access all of AUVSI's conference proceedings, including from past events. Proceedings from AUVSI's Unmanned Systems North America 2012 will be live on the Knowledge Vault in two weeks. The vault also serves as an easy way to search all of AUVSI's publications and access a vehicle database, where members can search for unmanned systems by name, domain, company or country. Other searchable documents include webinars, congressional documents and reports.
AUVSI is also starting an education campaign, aimed at informing the public about the benefits of unmanned systems technology. AUVSI has done more than 200 interviews and has had more than 250 media hits about this topic since the FAA bill's passage in February. After this conference, AUVSI will be launching a consumer website dedicated to increasing awareness about industry activities.
Source: Flight Daily News