In 2016, NAAA began reaching out to operators telling them about an opportunity our industry has to help the FAA keep manned aircraft safe from UAVs. By anonymously sharing your GPS data logs with Mississippi State University, the University will work with the FAA to demonstrate ag pilots flight characteristics. This, in turn, could lead the FAA to have sufficient data to better protect ag aviators flying in and around UAVs, based on submitted GPS data logs.

Mississippi State University's Raspet Flight Research Laboratory (RFRL) is leading a team of aviation researchers to determine when and where unmanned aircraft systems can operate safely with other aircraft at low altitudes. To do this, the RFRL research team is collecting data on when and where low-altitude aviators fly. But air traffic control radar doesn't provide coverage in the rural and or low airspace  where ag aviators are. If we want to show the FAA where low-level UAV flights could put ag aviators at risk, we need to send the RFRL our GPS data logs. The data you provide will be used to build representative flight profiles for agricultural aviation operations. Your data, when combined with flight data from other pilots, will help the RFRL team create the most accurate computer model ever built for low-altitude flight operations. This model will help to more reliably determine where drones can operate safely.

RFRL will conclude GPS data collection at the end of 2018 and transition into the data analysis and modeling phase of this project.  Therefore, GPS data from the 2018 season is especially important to this research as it provides the most current GPS data of the entire project.  Even if you have donated in years past, donating the data from your 2018 season can still be very useful. If you have never donated your data before, please consider sending your GPS data to university researchers to help them complete what promises to be a life-saving project.

As important as this research will be to flight safety, protecting your privacy is even more important. The data you provide will be stripped of personally identifiable information before it is stored and processed for this project. Your data will only be used for this purpose and will not be released outside of Mississippi State's flight research team without your express permission.

Additionally, Raspet preforms all calculations in-house without any third-party involvement. Raspet DOES NOT save any maps, images, or any other representation of the GPS logs and the geographic location of field will never be released. Lastly, since Raspet does not have any farmer or land ownership information for fields, there is no personal information involved or included in this process whatsoever. 

If you are willing to provide GPS data to support the RFRL's objective of enhancing low-altitude flight safety, MSU has set up a website that allows you to securely upload 1GB of your GPS track files. Go to www.hpc.msstate.edu/raspet-naaa and follow the instructions. The page will ask for a login—the username is: raspet-naaa, and the password is DATA#submission. Or if you prefer, you can simply email your files to agdata@raspet.msstate.edu (please limit email deliveries to 15 MB). For deliveries over 1 GB, you can save them on a thumb drive (or any external storage device) and mail it to:

Raspet Flight Research Laboratory
Attn: Madison Dixon
114 Airport Drive
Starkville, MS 39759

Additionally, if you have a large set of files you are currently storing on Dropbox or another file hosting site, email agdata@raspet.msstate.eduto request a link to share your files through Mississippi State's secure file sharing site. 

The RFRL will make recommendations to the FAA that will inform policy, procedures and operational guidelines for drone use that will help make our national airspace system safer. Most importantly, the results of this research may help save ag pilots' lives by making sure that everyone has the space they need to operate safely and effectively.

The RFRL at MSU was recently in the news for its contribution to a study showing UAV strikes are more dangerous to aircraft than bird strikes. The study was conducted through the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE). In addition to using resources from Mississippi State, researchers from Montana State University, Ohio State University, and Wichita State University also contributed.