Greg Walker, director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration, will be the guest speaker at the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce meeting on Tuesday June 4. Walker will share information about the new center at noon in the Carlson Center. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. and is open to the public. Tickets for lunch may be purchased at the door for $18 for members or $20 for non-members.

Walker and ACUASI team members recently returned from a trip to South Africa where they deployed the Aeryon Scout in an effort to identify rhinoceros and elephant poachers in the Welgevonden Game Reserve in the Limpopo Province.

The trip to South Africa is just the latest venture Walker and the ACUASI team have undertaken. The group has also used unmanned aircraft to monitor marine mammals off the coast of Alaska and map the boundaries of in-state wildfires. The team was also succesful in gathering crucial imagery via unmanned aircraft to help officials plan a safe route through sea ice for the unprecedented wintertime fuel delivery to Nome, Alaska in 2012.

More information on the Chamber event is available at http://fairbankschamber.org.

More information on ACUASI is available at http://acuasi.alaska.edu/.

PHOTO CAPTION/CREDIT: Greg Walker is pictured with the Aeryon Scout in South Africa in 2013. Photo courtesy of G. Walker.