Rebirth: Is Reno at a drone tipping point?

Imagine a police officer parked 10 yards behind another vehicle.

It's a traffic stop that feels dangerous, and in the next couple of minutes, there will be a slow, tense walk to learn who and what awaits inside.

If the police department had one of Ashima Devices' new pie-shaped drones, the officer could toss it in the air and let it fly around the suspect's car to look inside before even getting near the vehicle.

Larry Lambert, Ashima co-founder and vice president, said Reno police told him they could've used one recently.

"There was a guy in the back of a car with an SKS (semiautomatic rifle) who was going to kill the officer and they had all kinds of problems and there was a standoff because they didn't know the guy was in the back of the car," Lambert said.

Ashima's Hexpuck Hawk drone could've aimed its cameras at the windshield and side windows, sending images back to a touch-screen pad worn on the officer's wrist. The company calls this "situational awareness." It's the drones' main purpose.

"It makes the job of first responders better because it provides a safety element to the public that wasn't there before," he said.

Reno landed the company this week.

Ashima will move its headquarters from near the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena to Reno. It is expected to hire 50 to 60 area residents soon, eventually ramping up to about 400 after two years if all goes well.

The devices have the potential to generate big business for Ashima but also new work for nearby suppliers, researchers and parts manufacturers.

While it has a transitional office for engineers in downtown Reno, Lambert said, Ashima is prepping to build a drone factory in Stead.

"Getting a company that size in this new (drone) market is pretty incredible," said Becky Morton, a longtime member of the American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing and chairwoman of a drone-focused conference the group will host in October in Reno.

"It could attract other firms that manufacture similar things or sensors or add-on products that can be complementary," Morton said.

Reno, she said, could become the Silicon Valley of drone technologies.

Indeed, Northern Nevada seems on the verge of a drone boom.

Drones in casinos

Perhaps the thing that most exemplifies how the community has gotten behind the drone industry is a new effort to temporarily bypass limits stemming from the FAA's slow certification process for outdoor commercial drone tests.

"Just this week, indoor testing is going to be taking place on the UNR campus and at the Reno Convention Center and area hotels," said Warren Rapp, who leads the new Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems at Reno-Stead Airport.

In winter when visitors slow down, drone conventions could bring new business to casinos as well as provide optional venues to show off drones in action during bad weather that would otherwise ground outdoor activities.

"We're used to hosting large groups and have lots of those spaces that could hold demonstrations within the hotels themselves," Rapp said. "That's huge. They (companies) want to get in front of military and different contractors to showcase their products."

A large outdoor netting system is being installed at Reno-Stead Airport. This, too, will negate some requirements for FAA oversight.

Ashima Devices hopes to knock down some of those FAA hurdles soon.

It's seeking a "certificate of authorization" to do outdoor testing in Stead. Once it's successful, the process will go faster and easier for companies that follow.

Because of this unavoidable bureaucracy, Rapp doesn't think Nevada has been slower than expected in ramping up its drone industry, despite what one recent media report claimed.

"It took us a few months to get set up where we could arguably have people come out here," he said. "And in the first few months, we already have a major company."

Many hands

All this didn't happen by accident.

Gov. Brian Sandoval's Office of Economic Development lobbied hard to get the FAA to designate Nevada as one of six drone test sites around the country.

The Federal Aviation Administration wants to make sure that drones — also called unmanned autonomous systems or unmanned aerial vehicles — are safely integrated into America's airspace.

Since then, Rapp's institute, created with state funds, was set up to help companies jump through the necessary hoops to start testing here.

The University of Nevada, Reno created the Nevada Advanced Autonomous Systems Innovation Center to support drone research. It's hiring directors to run it as we speak.

The Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada has been enticing drone-related companies to call the Reno area home.

"EDAWN said anything you want, any questions you have, we'll find the answers," Lambert said. "They've been very, very, very, very good, and we've been in constant communication with EDAWN. It's been a partnership.

"But it's not just EDAWN, not just the governor — all credit to them because they got us through the door — but UNR, we started working with them immediately. We went over and talked to the professors at UNR, we talked over the drone program there, we talked to the students."

UNR is one of the few schools in the nation with a drone minor degree program, started earlier this year.

"We've also been working with community colleges on curriculum issues in both Northern and Southern Nevada for their engineering departments because they asked us," Lambert said. "They've said, 'Help us design a curriculum that's modern.' Technology moves so fast that if you're graduating kids with five-year-old training, it's completely useless, you're being trained in something nobody wants."

Not California

In the end, Ashima came here because Reno sold itself and Nevada wasn't California.

"We were looking for really everything Reno offered," Lambert said.

"First of all, Reno's friendly, Nevada's friendly; they actually want us here. California could care less, while Reno opened up the door. There's not one part of this town or this business environment that I've found the slightest bit negative; it's all 100 percent."

The Reno-Stead Airport provided space for Ashima to do tests.

"That's huge," Lambert said. "Could you imagine that any airport in California would give us free of charge — and allow us to set up our outfit on — a square kilometer of the prime UAV testing facility in the state? No, never, no."

Even the press conference last week with Sandoval celebrating the Ashima news went smoothly

"In California, it would've been $200,000 and 40 lawyers and six months," Lambert said about pulling off the announcement. "We just sat down with (the governor's staff) and the Stead people and worked it out in about an hour — what does the FAA need, what do we need, what does the governor's office want. EDAWN was there. And we worked it out. So instead of having a large bureaucratic war that spans months, we just worked it out with a couple water bottles and a morning."

New test course

This is what all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering has been moving toward: getting the word out about Reno as a place for drones and as a place where it's not cumbersome to do business.

And it seems to be working.

"The press reports I have seen is that (Reno) is a hotbed area for UAV startup companies," Morton said. "And the fact that you have one of the FAA designation test sites — that will be critical and will pull people to that region. It's a good testing place, it's a good place to live and it has a good business environment."

She said the FAA test-site designation was the reason the American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing chose Reno for its conference this year — and this may pay long-term benefits.

"We are planning to do a very unique thing in conjunction with this symposium," Morton said. "ASPRS will establish the first UAS mapping calibration test course and that is going to be at the Nevada test site" at Stead airport.

Pending FAA approval before the conference in late October, the course will include ground-surveyed targets of varying heights, radiometric targets, undulating surfaces, "surprise" targets and simulated flight-restricted areas.

Her group will then evaluate the data. The goal is to verify that companies' equipment accurately surveys real-world things and places.

Colin Snow said conferences such as these are critical for bringing awareness to the benefits of drones and to what Reno has to offer.

He is founder of Drone Analyst, a Northern California consulting company for buyers and sellers in the commercial UAV industry, and he will be an ASPRS conference speaker.

"As more technology comes online, people are going to need to do tests at an FAA site so this will go on for years," he said of the benefit from Reno's test designation.

To those who have complained about the slowness of Nevada's drone progress, Snow said it wasn't unexpected.

"It just takes time, there are a lot of legal and technical hurdles," he said. "Testing is basically very strict guidelines. To make sure you're in line with those, it does take quite a bit of paperwork."

Manufacturing jobs

Another event coming up in October is the 2014 Manufacturing in Nevada Conference at the Nugget in Sparks.

The Governor's Office of Economic Development "came to us and said they thought it'd be a good idea to add a drone day," said Rob Hooper, head of the Northern Nevada Development Authority.

So instead of a one-day event, it was expanded to two days, with the second devoted to drones.

"When you look at a drone, a lot of people see just a drone but we look at every single piece of that drone," said Jojo Myers, NNDA's business development and projects director.

"We're not just testing drones here. This is an opportunity to attract the companies and manufacturers that make that widget or compressor or all the parts that go on those drones. That's sustainability. Let's start getting those manufactured here."

Air races

Before those conferences, the National Championship Air Races will get in on the action with its new-this-year Drone Zone featuring hands-on drone exhibits from Reno-based Drone America and others.

It will also have a small-drone challenge, where anyone with a drone can compete in categories for speed, agility and lifting capacity.

"Nevada is looking to establish itself as a hub for UAV and UAS so with the air races being such an enormous part of the aviation culture of the state, we decided we absolutely wanted to be part of that and to bring that to the races well," said Mary Beth Sewald, wearing her hat as vice chair of sponsorships for the air races. She is also managing staff analyst for Ashima Devices.

Lambert expects Northern Nevada to become a center for drone manufacturing and research as soon as the FAA sets its safety guidelines so businesses can start flying drones in public.

"I personally believe that this area is going to end up being a real hub nationally for UAVs," Lambert said.

"I think the word really has not gotten out to a lot of these companies about why Nevada, why Reno, why Stead. When the FAA approves UAVs for commercial applications, it's going to go nuts here."

Got a drone? Enter air race contest

The National Championship Air Races in Reno will host its first Small UAS Challenge during this year's event Sept. 12-14. (UAS stands for unmanned aerial systems and is another word for drone.)

Open to private and commercial participants, the event is free to enter and will be administered by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. It will feature an obstacle course, time trial and a dead lift to test strength. Eligible aircraft must be able to perform a vertical takeoff and landing and can be no larger than 36 inches and 10 pounds.

The number of participants is limited, and early registration is encouraged. All participants will receive free admission to the National Championship Air Races.

To register for the Small UAS Challenge, visit airrace.org and go under the "News" tab to the post on the "unmanned aerial challenge."