Michael Guest Asks Witness How NDAA Requirements Impact Drone Usage At DHS

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During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS) asked Bryan Farrell, the Interim Director for the Raspet Flight Research Laboratory at Mississippi State University, about the impact of the National Defense Authorization Act on drone usage.   Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00I now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning.

00:05Director Farrell, thank you for being here today.

00:09We have seen that recent concerns over privacy, public safety, and national security have

00:17led to restrictions on drones from certain foreign manufacturers.

00:22Given these concerns and these restrictions, how is the industry affected by requirements

00:28imposed by the National Defense Authorization Act?

00:33Thank you, Chairman Guest.

00:36So I believe that the United States industry is playing catch-up.

00:44I think that the commercial market and first responders have had access to cheaper Chinese

00:51technology in particular for quite a while.

00:56I think that we had heard testimony around the program that DIU has that has certainly

01:02led to advancements and investment in U.S. manufacturing.

01:09I think that the CHIPS Act and other efforts in order to bring the technology back here

01:16to invest in the critical components, the autopilots, the camera systems, have made

01:21a lot of headway.

01:22If you had asked me this question several years ago, I think I would have said we're

01:26pretty far away, but recent investments, recent technology is really showing vast improvements.

01:33The work that we're doing through Project Justice is meant to support DHS components

01:40in their procurement processes.

01:43You heard about the bottleneck at DIU.

01:46One way that we're trying to support industry here is to give them an alternative pathway

01:50for DHS procurement processes where we do our own vetting, we do our own cyber vulnerability

01:56assessments as well as critical component analysis.

01:59That opens the door for DHS components as they choose to request and look at different

02:04technologies to be able to give other manufacturers an opportunity to sell and to ensure that

02:12the components have a safe product at the end of the day.

02:17All that to say is the NDA requirements have truly caused some bottlenecks, but we are

02:24working rapidly to try to alleviate those and enhance the American product and as well

02:29as ensure the safe operations.

02:32Director Farrell, you mentioned Project Justice, a partnership between DHS S&T and the Rasput

02:40Flight Center there located at Mississippi State University.

02:45If one, you just give us a kind of a brief overview of Project Justice and then you mentioned

02:53just a moment ago, but maybe go into a little bit more detail the work being done to support

02:58the Department of Homeland Security.

03:00Absolutely.

03:01So Project Justice was started as the common UAS test site back in 2016.

03:06We exist now in our current iteration as Justice NextGen.

03:11It's the joint unmanned systems testing and a collaborative environment program under

03:15the Air, Land and Ports of Entry portfolio.

03:18As a part of this work, we support all of the components for their UAS testing as well

03:23as research and development needs as it relates to UAS as well as other associated technologies.

03:30So as DHS gets a gap within the UAS world, they'll reach out to us to be able to analyze

03:39that and this can take many different forms.

03:42It can be looking at the landscape of commercial available products.

03:48It can be examining what exists within our research portfolio to understand what can

03:53fit that space.

03:55It can also be custom UAS development.

03:58We've developed UAS that the market wasn't providing for HSI, an entry level drone that

04:04had some really great capabilities.

04:08It can also be items where like Air Domain Awareness.

04:13We just delivered a tool for DHS that provides Air Domain Awareness leveraging the Beyond

04:19Visual Line of Sight capabilities that remote ID are meant to provide and then also a broadcast

04:29or an ATAC system to give situational awareness and we demoed that actually at the university's

04:35campus around a football game scenario.

04:42We've also leveraged the program to support FEMA Region 4.

04:48So we actually flew the Teros in support for Helene as well as Debbie and that was a really

04:55great showcase of a 44 foot wingspan aircraft, 24 hours of endurance that can distribute

05:02live video and tiled imagery.

05:05Those are just some of the things we're doing but truly I think that the portfolio given

05:10the partnerships, given the collaborations with our Ashore Center of Excellence as well

05:18as the other industry partners really opens the gamut for what we can provide to DHS.

05:24Thank you Director Fairless.

05:25My time has now expired.

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