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Established 1912
Fun times at the 145th Saanich Fair
Piranha swimmers victorious
Get a full look at the fun and entertainment at this weekend’s fair. Inside today’s paper
Peninsula swim team leaves provincials with impressive 17 medals, Page A10
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The future of
flight Sidney-based UVic research centre to explore technologies for unmanned air vehicles Kyle Slavin News staff
Jenner Richards foresees a not-so-distant future where any farmer in Greater Victoria could send an unmanned aircraft into the air – whenever they want – to check on the health of their crops. “The special cameras (on the aircraft) can tell you whether it’s getting enough water, whether it’s stressed out, whether it’s healthy; and by looking at that you can optimize where (crops are) worth planting, where it’s not worth planting, where you should harvest first,” says Richards, manager of the University of Victoria’s new Centre for Aerospace Research. The small centre, located north of the Victoria International Airport, will become a site for students to research and develop unmanned air vehicle “Unmanned air (UAV) technology to make vehicles can provide a it commercially accessible cost-effective solution for and available to civilians. will be looking at tasks that are repetitive, the“We airplane design, the hazardous, or that need electronics, avionics, we’re about propulsion, to be performed on short talking payload, how to do the notice.” processing of the data. All these things will be part of – Andrew Saxton this program,” says Afzal Suleman, an aerospace engineer and chair of UVic’s Aerospace Centre. “The idea is to create better (UAVs). We’re talking smaller ones, but also (UAVs that have) lighter environmental footprints.” On Friday, North Vancouver MP Andrew Saxton, on behalf of Western Economic Diversification, announced
Kyle Slavin/News staff
North Vancouver MP Andrew Saxton, left, University of Victoria president David Turpin and Afzal Suleman, director of UVic’s Centre for Aerospace Research, chat about unmanned air vehicles following a funding announcement aimed at getting UVic’s new Aerospace Research program off the ground. $671,500 in funding for the centre. Richards says there’s currently a huge gap in supplies in the UAV sector – there’s little offered between milliondollar military drones and pieced-together hobby shop airplanes. “We’re trying to fill this huge market in the centre with something that’s cost-effective, still reliable and can be easily operated,” Richards says. And the potential commercial uses don’t just stop at farmers monitoring crops. UAVs could be used for forest fire patrols, coast guard surveillance, port security, border patrol, avalanche prevention, wildlife preservation and
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management and pipeline patrols. “Over the past decade, unmanned air vehicles and unmanned air systems have shown tremendous commercial potential,” Saxton says. “They can provide a cost-effective solution for tasks that are repetitive, hazardous, or that need to be performed on short notice.” UAVs vary in size, with wingspans ranging from 50 centimetres to three metres. PLEASE SEE: Centre aims to be at technological forefront, Page A16
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