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Sgt. Tim Ehrenkaufer of the Daytona Beach Police Department recommended Embry-Riddle professors for his or her assist in assessing the harm from Hurricane Irma and he appears ahead to working with the college and college students sooner or later.
“We were able to get a good overall perspective of areas we couldn’t see from the ground, which we will be able to use for reimbursement with FEMA,” he mentioned.
Hurricane Irma tore off roofs, twisted indicators, knocked over a park slide and extra when it handed over Daytona Beach.. Professors from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University have been there to assist assess the harm.
Using drones from the college’s Daytona Beach Campus three College of Aviation professors labored with cops from the Daytona Beach Police Department not solely to assess harm after the storm, however to and doc vital areas earlier than Irma hit.
Dr. John Robbins, Associate Professor of Aeronautical Science and Undergraduate Program Coordinator for Unmanned Aerial Systems; Dr. Joe Cerreta, Assistant Professor of Aeronautical Science; and Anthony Galante, Assistant Professor of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Science, who can be a Daytona Beach Police reserve officer, carried out pre and put up assessments of vital infrastructure, together with the police division, hearth stations, and water and wastewater therapy services.
The professors have been ready to doc harm to lodge roofs, companies and metropolis signage in addition to harm to one of many slides at Daytona Lagoon Amusement Park that ended up on a roadway.
“The use of UAS provides an aerial perspective that can confirm suspected ground observations with great detail,” Cerreta mentioned. “Our professors were also able to gain more experience and knowledge about disaster assessment.”
The help was offered as a part of a collaboration applied in August between the Daytona Beach Police Department and Embry-Riddle’s Worldwide and Daytona Beach campuses.
The police division began the brand new aviation program to improve search-and-rescue operations and crime scene assessments. Selected officers are receiving coaching on unmanned plane from Embry-Riddle and taking on-line courses to grow to be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration as UAS pilots. Embry-Riddle launched one of many nation’s first UAS diploma applications in 2011, and now all three of the college’s campuses – Daytona Beach, Worldwide, and Prescott, Ariz. – have burgeoning UAS applications.
Embry-Riddle professors are additionally serving to the police division develop insurance policies and procedures on utilizing unmanned plane methods that adhere to Department of Justice pointers regarding respect for civil liberties, and with growing a security administration system to decide when it’s secure to use UAS primarily based on climate and different situations.
Galante, who has bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in Aeronautical Science from Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach Campus, retired full-time from the Daytona Beach Police Department in 2015. He began instructing at Embry-Riddle in 2016, and helped set up the aviation program on the police division. He mentioned the usage of drones after storms equivalent to Irma helps communities return to regular extra rapidly by figuring out areas with essentially the most harm in addition to downed energy strains and street blockages.
“We are just trying to help the community as a whole recover from a disaster,” Galante mentioned. “We were also able to live stream video back to the police chief’s office and department heads at Embry-Riddle so they could have instant accessibility to information.”
Robbins mentioned the info and classes discovered are being utilized in courses at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach Campus and are helpful to college students conducting service studying initiatives and internships with the police division.
“They can go out and work with real-world applications in a real-time environment on projects that will benefit society,” Robbins mentioned.
Sgt. Ehrenkaufer is supervisor of the aviation unit and has acquired certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly unmanned plane, together with three different officers. He mentioned seeing Embry-Riddle professors use drones in a real-world software was additionally helpful.
“You can’t beat that hands-on training,” Ehrenkaufer mentioned.
