Sasi Prabhakaran stepped into a large, enclosed area outfitted with motion sensors and cameras down a small hallway on the first floor of the Syracuse Center of Excellence.

He placed a small, insect-like drone in the center of a cage and backed away.

The machine, almost mimicking a dragonfly, suddenly whizzed into the air, as eight cameras lining the top of the cage recorded its every movement.

The cameras’ data filtered back to Amit Sanyal — an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, electrical engineering and computer science — and his Ph.D. students, who were raptly watching a computer screen.

“Here, they are building (on) the research side of the drone industry,” said Prabhakaran, who completed postdoctoral research at Syracuse University. He is currently the CEO of Akrobotix, a drone company.

Prabhakaran was referring to the Syracuse Center of Excellence, a research facility about a mile north of Main Campus. The center opened in October 2016 and is partially funded by New York state. It’s a futuristic-looking structure built on a remediated waste site near the tangle of Interstate 690 and Interstate 81 bridges adjacent to downtown.

The Center of Excellence is focused on expanding and accelerating research and development in clean energy, indoor environmental quality and other emerging technologies.

That includes drones.

The center has become an important part of SU faculty’s continued efforts to make the machines safer and more efficient, researchers said, as central New York becomes an increasingly high-profile location for unmanned aerial systems testing.

A primary goal for SU researchers is to build infrastructure for autonomous systems, so a drone could theoretically operate on its own, Sanyal said. With this infrastructure, a drone could react in real-time to what’s going on around it, he said.

In the drone industry, autonomy is referred to as “beyond visual line of sight,” Prabhakaran said. This means a drone could fly without a human operator actually watching it.

“That is considered the Holy Grail of the drone industry,” said Prabhakaran, standing near a drone setup outside the facility’s testing case.

Emma Comtois | Digital Editor

Another goal of research at the Syracuse Center of Excellence, Prabhakaran said, is to make drones safer and more reliable. And researchers also hope their work might play an important role in developing a common set of standards for the drone industry, Sanyal said.

At present, those standards don’t exist for drones beyond visual line of sight, Sanyal said. An example of a standard would be whether or not a drone of a specific weight would be allowed to fly above populated areas.

“Ultimately, this kind of research will be used to develop standards in maybe five years time,” Sanyal said.

Central New York has received significant funding support from New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in an effort to make the region a leader in drone technology research.

In 2016, Cuomo announced $5 million in state investments for unmanned aerial system support throughout central New York. The state has also dedicated an airspace corridor between Rome and Syracuse to drone research.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, in his “state of the city” speech last Wednesday, said “Syracuse will be the largest city in the nation covered by the instrumentation and software necessary to fly unmanned craft safely and efficiently for commercial purposes.”

The mayor said his administration has already met with drone initiative leaders in the region.

The Center of Excellence acts as a bridge between industry and academia. Companies can test algorithms and technology at the facility to validate their product. After their testing is completed at the facility and they determine whether their algorithm is functioning properly, companies can then test drones in the field, both Prabhakaran and Sanyal said.

Sanyal said the research being conducted at SU, related to drones, is dramatically reducing the time it takes for new technology to enter the market.

Large technology companies have been researching commercial drone systems, including e-commerce giant Amazon, which has invested heavily in developing drone systems for package deliveries.

But package deliveries are just one of many applications a drone could be used for, said Teresa Dahlberg, dean of SU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. Search and rescue operations and the delivery of medicine to rural areas are other possible applications of drone technology, Dahlberg said.

The university is also pushing the drone industry forward through workforce development and public outreach, the dean added.

As more drone manufacturers move to central New York, they will need to hire young and talented individuals, Dahlberg said.

“We are going to be the talent developers for these companies,” Dahlberg said. “What SU aims to do is launch short courses, certifications and degree programs across the important research areas for unmanned aerial systems.”

Not everyone is convinced of the benefits drones could offer, Dahlberg said. SU can also play a role in communicating those benefits, she said.

“What we really see is the UAS industry is going to grow substantially over the next 20 years.” Dahlberg said. “Given the companies that are here already, the regional industry and SU, I think we have a terrific shot at staking our claims in the UAS industry.”

Published on February 5, 2018 at 9:26 pm