Comment on proposed Unmanned Systems Domain Working Group

10 March 2017: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks comments on the draft charter of a proposed Unmanned Systems Domin Working Group (UXS DWG).

The proposed DWG will provide an open forum for the discussion and presentation of interoperability requirements, use cases, pilots, and implementations of OGC standards in the Unmanned Systems Community (including aerial, underwater, and other unmanned vehicle platforms).

The UXS DWG is chartered to identify standards requirements and use cases for all aspects of unmanned systems operations focused on mission planning, geospatial data collection, and analysis.

The UXS domain is rapidly evolving and includes participants from diverse practice areas, not all of which are mature or geospatial in nature. While large Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been in use for defense, ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), and remote sensing purposes for many years, the platforms now range in complexity from large, jet-propelled aircraft to palm-sized drones. Similarly, Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) also have a long history of operations, becoming increasingly sophisticated in recent years with respect to capabilities and autonomy.

The resulting complexity in the marketplace around the vehicle, payload, and resulting data is driving an increased need for standardization to foster the use of UXSs.

The role of the UXS DWG is to serve as a forum for the discussion of UXS-related topics brought to the DWG from OGC members as well as the larger UXS community in order to determine the need for a standards working group (SWG) to further the creation of new standards required to facilitate the growth of UXS technology and to present, refine and focus interoperability-related issues to the Technical Committee.

The mission of the UXS DWG is to document the use of UXS technology in the collection of geospatial data as well as identify the geospatial context of UXS operations in order to discuss the adoption of existing best practices and standards and/or recommend the creation of new standards to support the successful use of UXS technology.