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NSPS
Register Now!!!! Only 40 days remain until the beginning of the 2nd annual National Surveying, Mapping, and Geospatial conference to be hosted by NSPS and MAPPS on March 14-18 at the Hilton Hotel in Crystal City (Arlington), VA. The conference will feature on Monday April 14 the NSPS annual Student Competition finals, and a series of technical sessions presented by individuals, as well as by NGS; Tuesday will feature an exhibit hall, a mock trial educational workshop, and briefings by federal agencies on programs, budgets, and upcoming contracting opportunities; an all day workshop on the new ALTA/NSPS standards will be the feature event at the conference site on Wednesday. Wednesday will also see many attendees participating in the annual "Lobby Day" meetings with Congressmen and Senators on Capitol Hill; NSPS will hold its committee meetings on Thursday; the week will conclude with the NSPS annual General Membership meeting/installation of officers, and its Board of Directors meeting on Friday. Registration is now open at www.surveyingandmapping.net. Note that there are separate registration forms for NSPS attendees and MAPPS attendees. Breakfast and Lunch, as well as breaks, will be provided each day for those who register for the conference.
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Overwatch provides commercial drone operators a comprehensive risk insurance policy that offers physical damage, third party liability and more. Visit www.insuremydrones.com for a FREE, drone insurance estimate. Our customized Remotely Piloted Aviation System (RPAS) Policy is specifically written to cover Drones, UAVs, UASs, or any Remote Piloted System.
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The CHC i80’s LCD GUI allows for common workflow operations without the need of a data collector. As the smallest receiver on the market incorporating dual hot-swappable batteries, the i80 GNSS receiver brings a futureproof sub-centimeter RTK solution, tracking all five constellations and packing with a full array of sensors into an ergonomic package.
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Andrew Sturgeon PLS, Vice Chair of the NSPS Foundation/NSPS Education Committee Chair
NSPS Foundation Chair Joe Dolan recently asked members the Board of Directors to write articles about the Foundation. The following is one of those articles.
Each year, through the National Society of Professional Surveyors Foundation, over $20,000 dollars in scholarships funded by a variety of individuals, companies, and organizations are made available to encourage and support college education in geospatial sciences. These scholarships are a great opportunity for college students in surveying, mapping, geographic information systems, and geodetic science programs.
Every spring the scholarship selection committee receives a package of information from NSPS headquarters with approximately 35 applications for the 10 scholarships that are available each year. Recipients of scholarships are selected by a Scholarship Committee drawn from the Board of Trustees of the NSPS Foundation, Inc. and other scholarship-funding entities. Scholarships are awarded based on the following criteria: 30% academic record; 30% applicant’s statement; 20% letters of recommendation; and 20% professional activities. Degree of financial need will be used, if necessary, to break ties, after the primary criteria have been considered. As a member of the committee, I can attest that the applicants are so impressive that it takes days to go through the applications and score them correctly. The quality of the applications and the applicants are so close it seems unfair that some of them end up not receiving anything for their efforts.
The 12 total scholarships (some scholarships are available on alternate years) are broken up into four categories as follows:
Category 1 - Students enrolled in two-year degree programs in surveying technology. Category 2 -Students enrolled in, or accepted to, a graduate program in geodetic surveying or geodesy. Category 3 - Students enrolled in four-year degree programs in surveying (or in closely related degree programs such as geomatics or surveying engineering) and Category 4 - Students enrolled in two- or four-year surveying (and closely related) degree programs, either full or part-time. Students are encouraged to apply for all scholarships for which they qualify.
As one of the NSPS designated members of the NSPS Foundation Board of Directors, I want to highlight the three individual NSPS scholarships below:
CATEGORY 3: Students enrolled in four-year degree programs in surveying (or in closely related degree programs such as geomatics or surveying engineering) can apply for the two NSPS scholarship entitled:
“$2000 NSPS SCHOLARSHIP” This scholarship is given to an outstanding student enrolled full-time in undergraduate surveying programs.
“$2000 NSPS FELLOWS SCHOLARSHIP” This scholarship is available to undergraduate students with Junior or higher standing pursuing a degree in surveying and mapping, geodesy, or geographic information sciences.
CATEGORY 4: Students enrolled in two- or four-year surveying (and closely related) degree programs, either full or part-time students can apply for the NSPS scholarship entitled:
“$2000 NSPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS SCHOLARSHIP” This scholarship is available to students (on even years only) enrolled in a four-year degree program in surveying, who are entering their Junior year of study, and who have maintained a minimum 3.0 grade point average.
In future articles we will discuss other available scholarships.
The deadline for this year’s awards is April 29, 2016. Contact information: Scholarships, 5119 Pegasus Court, Suite Q, Frederick, MD 21704; 240-439-4615, ext. 105; fax 240-439-4952; trisha.milburn@nsps.us.com or on our website at www.nsps.us.com.
NSPS
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in cooperation with the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS), will be holding a webinar on the GPS on BMs program on Wednesday, February 17th from 3:00 to 4:00 pm Eastern Time. For more information please use this link to the registration page.
The webinar will explain the reasons for occupying bench marks to improve the hybrid geoid models which we are all using today.
The GPS on BMs program is also paving the way for the new vertical realization coming in 2022.
This is a wonderful opportunity for us to learn about the services provided by NOAA through the National Geodetic Survey,
and a chance to be part of the greater scientific community by participating in this program.
More information about the GPS on BMs program can be found at http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GPSonBM/.
A link to last year’s webinar is: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/corbin/class_description/GPS_on_benchmarks.shtml.
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NSPS
 NSPS News & Views readers are aware that NSPS supports the activities of the Young Surveyors Network that emerged a few years ago based on the model established by FIG. Recent editions of this newsletter have announced an upcoming meeting of the group in Minnesota. The lead person for our Young Surveyors Neywork is Amanda Askren, a young surveyor in the state of Washington. Amanda will join host Curt Sumner to talk the initiative.
If you are unable to listen to the show when it is being broadcast, listen to the archive of the show at americaswebradio.com/nsps-radio-hour. Archives for each show are typically available for listening within a few days after the show airs.
NSPS
The U.S. Senate has begun debate on S. 2012, the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016. The comprehensive, bipartisan bill includes an NSPS-endorsed provision that authorizes an inventory of Federal land. It is a modified version of the Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform (FLAIR) Act, which NSPS has long supported. Approval in the Senate is expected in the coming days.
NSPS
The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure this week held its first roundtable on the next version of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Bob Gibbs (R-OH) led this Subcommittee roundtable policy discussion to examine stakeholder priorities for this legislation which authorizes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to carry out navigation, flood control, shoreline protection, hydropower, dam safety, water supply, recreation, and environmental restoration and protection activities throughout the Nation. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report last month exploring a variety of issues to be addressed in the bill this Congress.
NSPS
A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report found that as UAS technology develops rapidly, the United States faces significant challenges in balancing safety requirements, privacy concerns, and economic interests. Many of the commercial applications envisioned for UAS, such as express package delivery, remote monitoring of utilities and infrastructure, and imagery collection and analysis to support precision agriculture, most likely will not be viable without development of technological capabilities that allow for the complete integration of UAS in the national airspace. Flight missions considered to be “dirty, dull, or dangerous” are regarded as prime candidates for the use of unmanned aircraft. Examples include surveillance for homeland security, border protection and law enforcement; highway traffic monitoring; forest fire scouting; disaster response; applications of pesticides; pipeline and transmission line inspection; surveying and geospatial imaging; atmospheric and environmental science; wildlife and natural resources management; scientific data collection; and severe storm monitoring. The FAA has proposed regulations allowing routine operations of small commercial UAS weighing less than 55 pounds, but is still developing the guidelines and standards for federal, state, and local government agencies. The FAA now requires that commercial and recreational UAS operators register all small UAS weighing between 250 grams and 55 pounds. Technology known as “geo-fencing” may play a future role in keeping UAS away from airports and other restricted airspace by overriding operator inputs and keeping UAS out of these areas.
NSPS
Recent catastrophic breaks in water mains and sewer discharges during storms are indicators of the nation's old and deteriorating water and wastewater infrastructure. EPA and USDA provide the three largest sources of federal funding for water infrastructure. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that the asset management practices used by these small utilities include identifying key assets, such as pipelines, treatment plants, and other facilities, and assessing their life-cycle costs. For example, officials from 23 of the 25 small water utilities GAO reviewed said they had maps that identify the location of at least some of their assets. The key challenges these officials identified include the availability of funding to cover start-up and maintenance costs, the availability of human resources, information on how to implement asset management practices, and political support from elected officials to begin an asset management program or increase user rates. EPA and USDA are taking steps to help water utilities implement asset management by providing funding, free or low-cost tools such as software, one-on-one technical assistance, and classroom training for small water utilities that plan to implement asset management practices. Leveraging existing data collection methods may be a cost-effective way for the agencies to collect this information. GAO recommended that EPA consider collecting information about utilities' use of asset management through its needs assessment surveys, and that EPA and USDA compile the benefits of asset management into one document.
Inside GNSS
Less than a month after Europe switched off most of its Loran transmitters, a problem with GPS satellite timing signal triggered alarms across the continent and caused an unknown number of outages, including the disruption of some features of critical infrastructure.
The GPS problem was caused by an error in ground software uploaded Jan. 26 as system operators removed space vehicle number 23 from service.
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GPS World
Harris Corporation will offer an all-digital navigation payload for GPS III Space Vehicles 11 and beyond.
According to Harris, the fully digital navigation payload will offer enhanced performance and enable on-orbit reprogramming. The all-digital payload expands on the advanced features of the current 70-percent digital payload that Harris provides for Lockheed Martin's GPS III SV 1-8 satellites.
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Directions Magazine
The National Address Database represents a single database containing address information for every residential and non-residential structure and interior unit, and optimally, for every point of ingress to real property. Providing accurate address data in a centralized open data portal will benefit nearly every aspect of government service, consistently improve the delivery of services, and spur innovation in the public and private sectors. Advanced technologies make the NAD possible today.
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Sensors & Systems
The geospatial technology industry rests on a number of different leading application areas that ebb and flow in terms of their level of investment. Some of the market surges in the past were driven by technological breakthroughs, others were due to federal spending, the emergence of a large market need or a combination of the above. At present, there isn't a dominant market, but the whole industry is looking to the next in order to drive revenues and shareholder returns.
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Note: NSPS members may receive calls from MultiView sales associates regarding advertising opportunities in News & Views. MultiView, a partner of NSPS, produces the News & Views newsbrief each week.
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