The video you’re about to see captures a project we recently sponsored in the emergency management space.

Like many other areas around the country, in Southern NJ we are concerned with the ability of emergency management personnel to use UAS, or drones, to assist in emergency management functions in the wake of weather and other emergencies. This is a new and rapidly evolving field, and it was clear to us that a real-time, boots-on-the-ground exercise with EM and regulatory officials could help move the needle forward in making the vision a reality ASAP.

With our industry partner AATI providing project management, after months of careful planning our project culminated in two day-long events at NARPT. In the first, officials gathered for an intricate Tabletop exercise in NARTP’s Thunder Room, where they planned flight scenarios for an exercise in which a coastal hurricane would be simulated.. Among those scenarios: the flight crew of the UAS unit at one of the northeast’s largest water utilities would fly over one of its large coastline facilities to surveil damage; in another, a neighboring county’s new OEM UAS unit would fly its first reconnaissance mission; in yet another scenario, our industry partners AeroDefense, a counter-UAS company, would demonstrate what happens when unauthorized drones appear to interfere with emergency operations.

A month after the Tabletop, the boots-on-the-ground exercise occurred. NARTP became a demonstration crisis communications-and-command center, and the flight crews deployed their UAS at Woodbine Airport, some miles south of us. The flights were streamed into NARTP’s Thunder Room, where we were joined by observers from the FAA, NASA, emergency management officials ranging from the Coast Guard to local OEMs, and numerous additional regulatory agencies.

The exercise was a great success! The following video walks you through its various components.