Rick Thomas and Rob MacKenzie have secured funding from the Natural Environment Research Council to run a training course for PhD students on the practical use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS, sometimes called “drones”) for research in the Earth and environmental sciences.
The 5-day training course will run in Jan/Feb 2014 from Oban and involves colleagues at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and the University of Reading. The training course adds to the two NERC research projects involving UAS ongoing in the School: the work Rick is doing measuring methane above Ascension Island (PDF 902KB), and work using the NASA Global Hawk. There is an ongoing debate about the military and civilian uses of UAS in the Birmingham Brief, with a contribution from Rick and Rob.
Find out more about the UAS training course