UAS News Podcast — 2012-07-19
Audio not available on SoundCloud — full transcript below.
Transcript
Welcome to the Back to School Podcast Series from the SUAC. This podcast series here is to highlight the different academic programs currently available to people wanting to get into the unmanned technologies field. And today's installment is Unmanned Vehicle University. I'm your host, of course, Patrick Egan.
And today's guest from that university is Dr. Jerry Lemieux. Hello, Dr. Jerry.
Hi, Patrick. How is everybody out there?
I just want to say thank you for inviting me to talk show and giving me the opportunity to talk about the university that we have that's dedicated to education and training on unmanned systems. We're pretty much focused on civil and commercial applications. Excellent. Well, you know, I appreciate you coming on.
I think that, you know, I wanted to do this series and the reason that I wanted to do this series is I get calls from people all the time who are saying, hey, you know, have you heard about these guys? What do they offer?
I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to, you know, whatever. And I'm like, well, OK, you know, I don't I don't really know because I've never really attended them.
I will say out of fairness and honesty for the audience that I'm actually I am doing your executive online course. And we've passed week two and so far I'm good with that. I'm going to do the whole thing and then I will be able to objectively talk about it at the end. But today I want to focus more on more of like your ethos.
So if we could start out, possibly you could give the audience and myself a little bio background on you, how you got to where you are, how and starting this university and we'll go from there. Yeah, I think it's a great idea that you're doing the show. We get thousands, literally thousands of phone calls and emails. And every time we have to start from scratch and talk about unmanned systems, talk about the programs and what kind of career, you know, a lot of people are interested in what kind of career opportunities are available out there for people to get training in this area.
And really, you know, there's not not much out there. You really have to, a lot of times you have to go in the military to get an education and it's one of the weaknesses that we observe. So we tried to capitalize on that and give people an opportunity to pursue a technical career. But anyway, getting back to myself, how I got here is I basically had about four careers, believe it or not.
The first one is I have a PhD in electrical engineering. With over 20 years of experience, I've done a lot of work with sensors and integrating those sensors into aircraft. Worked on a lot of military systems like F-15, F-16 and ALACS, the Raider Upgrade Program. So I had a full career as an engineer.
And second career is in aviation. I have over 40 years and $10,000 of flying experience. Been a military fighter pilot and an airline pilot for Delta Airlines. My connection to the unmanned world happened several years ago when I was invited to join RTCS Special Committee 203.
And that's an organization that focuses on unmanned systems. We're working hard to develop the standards for the UAV collision avoidance systems. My third career was as a military officer. I flew the fighter aircraft, as I mentioned, on active duty for about 10 years.
And then the rest of my career I spent in the reserves as a research and development engineer and retired as a colonel several years ago. And finally, my fourth career, I was a part-time lecturer throughout all that at Boston University, MIT, University of Maryland, Embry-Riddle, and Daniel Webster College, two aviation schools at the end there, and taught graduate and undergraduate levels in electrical, mechanical, and aeronautical engineering. I have over 20 years of experience developing these type of courses from scratch.
So really, I'm an expert at helping students understand difficult material by translating it into everyday analogies. I try to inspire our faculty members to do the same. So now we're finally at my, hopefully, last career as executive director and president of Unmanned Vehicle University. I also teach a UAV fundamentals course.
The one that you're currently going through is a online certificate course. But we also have graduate courses that are related to that, that get to be more technical with technical papers and assignments for grading. Just last week, one of my students that used to work at a UAV manufacturer, a major manufacturer, said to me that she learned more from me in the first week for the graduate program than she did in two years that she worked for the company. So I really believe that is a complete validation of our capability.
She just called in, and she's actually on. And I want to just say hi to Chelsea and give her the mic here for just a couple minutes so she can talk about her experience at this school. Sounds good. Sure, sure.
I'm Chelsea Guerin, and I'm a student of Dr. Jerry. And the course is really good for me. And I came from, you know, a comics company, and I worked on UAV.
And when I took the course, and I thought, oh, I didn't know that. And lots of information, I didn't know that. And also, in second year, we are very benefited by the profound resource of the library. Dr.
Jerry created an armament system with all kinds of topics, profound resources. And I'm just amazed. And this is really helped me finish this master degree. Yeah.
Well, that's a good testament, I think, you know, from the students. And I will add, from the course that I'm taking, you know, I will say it's a pragmatic approach. It's not pretentious at all. It's kind of a comfortable, I guess, read through or imparting of knowledge, which I think is a good thing.
There's a lot of stuff in there. Sometimes, I think people that teach overwhelm their students, you know, the acronyms and everything else, and it's hard to grasp all of that. But I will say from the two that I've done so far in the series, I have noticed that. And I guess that would lead us right into the first question.
And that is, if you could, what is your education philosophy? Basically, first of all, we're a global university. We have a goal of letting everyone in the world learn about unmanned systems. Unmanned vehicle university is the first university in the world dedicated to higher education and systems.
The programs that we offer are masters and doctorate degrees in unmanned systems engineering. And it's a totally online curriculum. So if you think about it, what inspired these degrees is an unmanned vehicle is not just a vehicle, it's a system. It's composed of the vehicle, the communication system, the data link, the payload, and the control station.
So really, we take a systems engineering approach to preparing students first for an engineering career. The core topics in the curriculum include unmanned systems, which really there are no books for yet. There are very few books. Some are starting to come out.
So we use our experts to prepare their own content for these unmanned systems courses. And we also have mathematics and systems engineering courses. We also had calls from a lot of people saying that, hey, we want to learn about unmanned systems, but we don't want to do a degree. We just want to learn the basics.
So then we rolled out what we call executive certificate courses. And these courses are conducted using web conferencing with a live instructor so the students can see the slides from the instructor's desktop. And then they can hear the instructor and ask questions. The final product that we offer is corporate training, where we can find an instructor anywhere in the world.
And we have instructors around the world that, to conduct short courses, three to five day courses in specialized topic areas. So really the bottom line is on the philosophy is we're trying to make unmanned education accessible around the world, make it convenient, make it personal, where the student can contact the instructor anytime on the phone, email, Skype. And by using web conferencing, we can have personal contact with the students. Right.
And that kind of some of what you just spoke to rolled right into my second question, was how is your school different? And I will say from my experience and even doing the course, you know, I was a little concerned when we started talking about dates and times and working professionals and people that are busy and whatnot. And I will say that I was pleasantly surprised that you tried to accommodate, let's say, the different time zones
and people schedules and offered several different times for people to come and be able to participate or even recording it so they could do it later and ask questions and things like that.
And I was happy about that. I was a little apprehensive. I have to be honest, even trying to take other courses online for myself, one of the big stumbling blocks has been is, you know, I may not be somewhere where there's internet access at a certain time. I may be standing out in the desert somewhere enjoying the heat.
So I was pleasantly surprised about that. And I will, my hat's off to you for trying to make it very accommodating to the students. Okay. So moving on to the next question because we believe it or not, we've already ripped through about 12 or 13 minutes of time.
It happens quick around here. What does your school consider for admissions?
Jerry. Well, before I get into that real quick on the accommodation, you mentioned that it was very accommodating and we do try to do that. We originally started to focus on trying to offer the course after work hours. But now you have three times as much as you have to deal with.
So we had to wrestle with that. And then when we added, made ourselves a global university, we've got students from all over the world in all different time zones. So Australia probably being the longest change with 17-hour time difference. So we went to a two course, or two course a day option where we teach twice a day to accommodate the time zones and we also record the courses.
So once the course or the class is over, we send out a link to all the students and then they can play back. Also, you can download an application from Cisco for your iPad or your iPhone or your Android. But getting back to your question, pretty simple admissions procedure. If you are working on a master's degree, we need a transcript from a bachelor's degree and for a doctorate degree, we need a transcript from a master's degree.
And that's about it. We really want anyone anywhere in the world to have the opportunity to learn about unmanned systems. In addition, we have campuses on all the major continents, Australia, Africa, Europe, South America and the Middle East. We also have directors in all these countries.
If you go to our website, www.uxvuniversity.com and you click on the campuses tab, you'll see the person, their email address and a phone number and you can contact them. Right. And one other, I mean, flashing back into that pan with the e-learning, I did notice that through one of my courses, we had a fellow in the mountains up there in Afghanistan that was e-learning during the class. So it is different in that sense.
We do have a different world today where people from anywhere can come and learn and I think that your university is proving that and really with how busy people are. I mean, you know, this guy is earning while he's learning and I know I've talked to a lot of guys that used to be with the programs that I was on, the Navy program and they asked me all the time, hey, can I do this while I'm deployed and everything else?
And I say, well, I don't think that there's any reason you can't and you've proved that you can do that. So, a hat off to you again there. Okay, and then I did ask you about the admissions and you kind of went over the specific educational requirements and course prerequisites for the different programs. But besides those for the executive certificate courses and some of the other offerings, it's pretty much open to all comers, is that correct?
That's right. So, you don't have to be, you don't even, I noticed there's a couple people, they know nothing about this field but they think it's exciting and they want to become a part of it and I noticed that they're in your class. Do you, you know, I guess that's another question I would like to ask you. What type of students are you attracting?
What type of people? Are they, you know, is it mainly military or ex-military?
Is it, you know, engineering guys? Is it Joe Bagadonis?
Who is it? Yeah, getting back to your comment about Afghanistan, we actually have, in our last class, had someone from Afghanistan. In our current class, we had someone joined from Afghanistan and he was so excited about the program, he talked to his friend over there, now we have two. So, what kind of people do we attract?
Well, I was just very happy about our last class. We had some amazing people. One, two of the people were CEOs of companies. One was a general officer in the military and another one was a United Nations member, believe it or not.
The CEOs were from companies who were hoping to transition their products to the unmanned systems industry. An example is one of the CEOs had a company that makes composite materials for the airline industry and he hopes to transition to the UAV industry, but he doesn't have the knowledge about the technical aspects of unmanned systems and so he took our UAV fundamentals course, the certificate course that you're in, so that he can learn about all the critical areas and get a big picture view of what unmanned systems are all about.
The current class we have is about double the size of the previous class, so we're growing slowly and hopefully we're going to get there. Hey, a caller just popped up and this could be fun. Do you want to take a call from a caller?
Yeah, definitely. Let's bring him on here. Hello, caller. Hi there.
Okay, I take it you have a question for Dr. Jerry. Well, actually, I just wanted to make a comment. This is John Miner and I'm one of the students attending the university as well as I'm part of the faculty there as a subject matter expert and you'd asked what kind of students and what kind of people that the university was attracting and I wanted to just talk a little bit about why I ended up going there.
I'm about a 36, 37 year professional in the aerospace industry, started out in the Air Force, did 14 years in the Air Force, took an early out program, worked with industry with Lockheed and Lural and ended up my last job in industry was with the Skunk Works working on the Dark Star UAV and then went back into the Air Force as a civilian in a civilian role and I've been doing that since about 2001 and throughout the years it's been very difficult for me to go on and get my PhD and it's normally very difficult to get a systems engineering type of PhD through a distance learning program.
You usually have to go to the campus, you have to be in residence, the instructors like to have you right there and this is the first opportunity I've seen where you can get an actual technical systems engineering type of degree specializing in this case in unmanned vehicles through a distance learning program so that's what attracted me from a student perspective. From a professional's perspective
and wanting to get hooked up with the university after talking with Jerry and understanding what the program was all about and seeing the direction that he was taking and the high level of expertise that he was attracting, I decided that I wanted to be part of it.
Now my background, I started off back in the 70s in the Air Force working ISR type systems for the strategic air command on the SR-71 and U-2 and then ended up having a career in the military as a flight test engineer. I graduated from the Air Force test pilot school back in the 80s and then went on to be an instructor there. Are you still there?
Yes, sir. Okay, I thought I dropped the connection. Graduated from the Air Force test pilot school in 1987 and then went on to be an instructor there and then later came back as a civilian in 2001 as their first master instructor over systems and developed the first unmanned vehicle flight test course for the test pilot school. Currently living in Utah, my last job before I moved to Utah was the technical director for the Air Force test pilot school from 2004 to 2008
and we did a lot of UAV training and education for the students there because we knew it was a coming field and of course now they actually have programs where they bring the military guys through there.
That's a very small number of people that can get education through that military school and this opens up unmanned vehicle systems engineering to a whole wide world of not only military but civilian people out there that want to get an advanced education in this particular field. Right, and I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I like the concept that this is being broadcast to the masses, that people can come and get information and I totally agree with you with the education situation. Like I had stated, I don't know where I'm going to be one week to the next.
I might be, I could be anywhere, some test range anywhere almost throughout the country or around the world or who knows where and it's very hard to try and do a regular or traditional education program. Now with the Android apps and the smartphone apps, you can download the course materials right from your phone no matter where you're at and plus everything is recorded and if you can't catch the live session with the instructor, you can go back later on and pick it up later and then if you have any questions, it's very easy to get in contact with them.
I think that this approach is going to really take off. Distance learning in general in the US and around the world has started to take off and I think this is just another example that's going to be very successful. I think that it's going to translate into the new economy. I mean it's the same deal.
We're moving away from, we've talked a little bit about Afghanistan and I know that even the project that I was on, today with the internet and cell phones and satellite phones or whatever, with this type of model, you can learn anywhere in the world and I just have to get a smartphone that's not steam driven and I can download all those apps and move into the forward, into the future there. You know I also wanted to talk to you, this is kind of a new concept, not that it's totally new but our applications and what not and I wanted to ask Dr.
Jerry, how are you drawing folks? I know you did a radio program, I know you've done a couple of magazine articles but are you going out there trying to find these folks?
Are they finding you? What are you doing?
How are you making that happen? Well initially it was me finding folks and starting to find me. I spend at least half of my day on the phone with people and answering emails, probably at least 100 emails a day going through and trying to get people answers so that they can make a decision on whether they want to become part of the school or not. So a lot of it right now is word of mouth and I really appreciate you having me on the show so I can get the word out there.
We have done some advertising as you mentioned on the internet, we haven't had a lot of success with that, maybe one or two people from a major campaign for a week with some major funds expended so we've conducted some interviews on national talk radio shows. Last week we gave an interview to New Scientist magazine and the next week we have an interview scheduled with Defense IQ. So the word is slowly getting out there, we're going to be at the AUVSI trade show conference in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Casino from August 6th to the 9th
and just stop by, booth number 5040 so you can register for one of our courses there, we'll give you $100 off and you can also throw your business card in the box and we're going to have a drawing for a free course.
Excellent, I'll be there and I'm over committing but I'm a chronic over booker. I definitely want to stop by and meet you in person and talk to you guys there, I look forward to that opportunity. Now one other thing and I know I think I've asked you before if you had an athletic program because I wanted a letter, get the letter mid-sweater. We do have a logo based shirt that we not sell you.
Alright, well maybe I'll get one of those, I wanted to start the hurling team or cricket, I don't know. Have you developed any concepts for let's say assistance with job placement or a career center, any concepts like that or is it just too early for that?
Yeah, you know we do get that question from students, you know, hey I go through your program, we get to the end, how do I get a job, can you help with that? And what I want to say is we're pretty well connected in the UAV industry and we can definitely help you in job placement. We've actually had several UAV companies contact us about employee orientation training, believe it or not. The idea there is that a typical new hire has pretty much a concentrated focus in the area that they're hired for.
So say for example an aeronautical engineer is going to focus on UAV design, first they need to retrain them from airplanes to UAVs and then he goes about and does his work maybe in that specialized field for a long time without having the big picture. So companies are sending their new employees to our campus so they can get a big picture view with all the different systems and components that make up the UAV and I think the companies see this as training and it can help their employees be more productive.
I'd concur with that. I know the Navy project that I was on, most of these guys had no experience with remote sensing and no experience with this type of technology and we spent almost a week kind of bringing them up to speed on what it is, nominate your capabilities, applications and when you think of that as a program it can get pretty expensive if you can hand that off to somebody who's got a regular program and put people through that. I could see where it'd be cost savings for them and also kind of get you guys initiated into different concepts.
So in the future that'll probably happen. I know a lot of these contractors or servicing contractors are offering education dollars to prospective hires and that's been one of the things I've been getting from people is like hey I just got hired on, I'm going to Afghanistan and my company is offering me some money for education. Where do you think I should go?
And I say well, I don't know, it depends on what you want to do and that was really in a nutshell, that was the impetus for this whole series. So I do think that that'll work hand in hand with people wanting like say the servicing contractors so I think that's a good thing. Now I wanted to ask you one thing because we are on the cutting edge here. What are you seeing, I know since you started, what are you seeing as the future of education in this field?
You know, what are you seeing? What's kind of showing itself to you?
Yeah, I guess our goal is to educate the new leaders in unmanned systems. We really need to have continuous education for development programs, orientation for new employees, training for existing employees. We need to focus on the basics like you mentioned that other people are doing, talk about the sensors, the communication systems, the regulations, how to design a UAV, the new propulsion methods that are coming online, new navigation systems, sense and avoid systems, human machine interface, and then autonomy, autonomous systems.
We cover all these critical topic areas through our online certificate courses and three-day short courses. So we're also continually adding new faculty and new courses in different UAV specialty topic areas. We try to take advantage, we are attracting just some amazing people. One of our people is from Hungary, Dr.
Resta Fagostin. He has two PhDs in aerial firefighting believe it or not and he also has six years of experience with UAVs and firefighting. We took advantage of that right away and we developed a course on UAVs and firefighting that you can take, eight-week online certificate course and we're just starting to market that. We're hoping to connect with the fire departments so that they can get an education before they go out and buy a UAV.
We start all of our certificate courses in August. You can go to the website www.uxvuniversity.com and see the topics but they're basically my course on UAV fundamentals, the firefighting course that I just mentioned. We also have an aerodynamics and flight stability course, one on small UAV design and operation and another one on UAV autonomy and swarming. These courses are taught by PhDs in engineering that have an average of 25 years of experience.
So you're generally the best experts in the world. Okay, I don't want to cut you off but we are down to about 20 seconds here on the show. It happens quick. Things will change.
There's a very fluid technology and I look forward to seeing what comes out of this. I look forward to finishing the course. I think today's podcast was very informative. I want to thank you.
I want to thank the callers and I'll be talking with you in the future. Thank you very much, Patrick. Really appreciate you having us on this show. Thank you.