IG Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems’ Data RDA 9th Plenary meeting

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07 January 2017 1797 reads

Meeting title

Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) Data Best Practices: Building the Community

Short introduction describing the activities and the scope of the group: 

The sUAS Data Interest Group (IG) was proposed in December 2016 with the goal of forming a community to explore best data management practices for sensor systems onboard small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS). 
The unique features sUAS offer for data collection are driving their rapid increase in use across all sectors. These features (e.g. frequent and repeatable flights, ability to incorporate a variety of sensors) combined with the potential for sUAS data to be used in conjunction with other data, and the community momentum behind open data and reproducible science, all suggest that a community consensus around best data management practices would be hugely beneficial to all involved. 
This IG is therefore seeking to provide an appropriate forum for a conversation on such. To start with, we aim to enable discussion and working groups with the goals of; (1) Gathering and codify existing sUAS standards, (2) Help implement and champion sUAS data best practices from which all sUAS-using sectors can build off, (3) Propose additional standards only where needed.
This session will lay the foundation for our sUAS Data IG community by beginning the process of articulating the current data landscape of the sUAS community, identifying sUAS data management challenges and opportunities, bringing together cross-sector sUAS users and data practitioners to lay out plans for community growth, and seeking internal RDA partnerships so as to leverage existing work and expertise. 
Developing this community while the sUAS domain is relatively nascent offers many significant advantages amongst them:
(i) Enable good data stewardship practices from the start. That is, enable sUAS data to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) as expressed by FORCE11. The sUAS community can learn from, and avoid, the data difficulties older domains are now experiencing with attempting to retroactively apply good practices.
(ii) Enable the development and support of open source tool and technique development regarding; sUAS data capture methodology, data analytics, data fusion, and data sharing.
(iii) Lower the barrier to entry for new users and new infrastructure developers. This will conceivably fast track the potential use of sUAS for both scientific and commercial use cases.
(iv) Building a gathering space that brings together, and actively seeks input from sUAS data users across all sectors including; sUAS platform and tool developers (commercial, academic, and hobbyist), all relevant existing data standard and practice organisations, sUAS current and future users, and sUAS regulatory bodies.

Additional links to informative material related to the group i.e. group page, Case statement, working documents etc

The sUAS data IG charter can be found here: The Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems’ Data IG Charter Statement. This IG is still pending review and we are actively seeking input and comment from anyone with an interest. This charter will be reviewed at this kick off session.

The concept of a sUAS data IG within the RDA was formulated out of conversations following this presentation at last year’s 2016 International Data Week in Denver. 

The initial proposers of this sUAS data IG are co-chairs of the Earth Science Information Partners Federation’s (ESIP) drone cluster with various resources and ESIP funded projects hosted on the Open Science Framework here.

Meeting objectives

1) Gather a community of interested parties to discuss and hear their input.
2) Discuss and finalise the sUAS data IG charter and operational mechanics.
3) Explore spinning off at least 1 initial RDA working groups (WG) at P10 to begin formally working on the IG goals.

Meeting agenda

- Introduction (10 minutes):
- Who we are
- Presentation of some example use cases to seed discussion (Academic, Commercial, Hobbyist)
- All attendees to introduce themselves and context in sUAS domain (10 minutes)
- Set the RDA context with a brief summary of RDA organisational IG and WG process and structure so as to provide a common background to all, before reviewing the proposed IG charter for comment (15 minutes)
- Break into small groups (of ~5) for discussion on: (45 minutes)
- Comment on the proposed IG charter
- Go through the WG proposal template filling in ideas as a mechanism for gathering a sense of priorities from across the community as a whole. These documents will seed the discussion on needed WG’s over the following 6 months leading to the launch of appropriate WG(s) at P10.
- Wrap up & next steps (10 minutes)

Audience: 

We invite anyone who falls into one or more of the follow categories to attend and actively participate in this session:
- sUAS commercial sector representatives: sUAS service providers, sUAS platform developers, sUAS sensors manufactures, sUAS tool developers.
- Academics: Those involved in sUAS platform, sensor, or tool (data, flight control, onboard or ground based tools, pre or post flight data handling tools) development, sUAS use, and sUAS legal researchers.
- Representatives from existing standards bodies.
- The Open Source sUAS community contributors such as those working with drone code and similar bodies.
- The Private sector including: Hobbyist sUAS operators and makers, and RC clubs.
- Aviation legal representatives.
- RDA community members who are interested in the goals of the sUAS data IG.

We will be discussing the present and avenues towards developing a best practices guide for sUAS captured data management, utilising the RDA forum. We will therefore be seeking comment on the proposed sUAS data Interest Group Charter and on forming RDA working groups to carry out some of the tasks discussed. Given time limits, while we will review them briefly, it is therefore suggested that attendees familiarise themselves with the RDA organisational structure and operating model as outlined here, in preparation.

Group chairs serving as contacts: Jane Wyngaard

Type of meeting: Informative meeting

Group maturity: 0-6 months

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