Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) was awarded the money through the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) through the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program. INDOT's Land and Aerial Survey Office (LASO) applied to the SMART Grant Stage 1 this summer with the Building Local Capacity for Aerial Surveys project.
Aerial Geomatics Coordinator for the INDOT LASO Doug Heidenreich says the project was the first he worked on after joining the state agency.
"It's pretty crazy landing this grant. I started working at INDOT last May. The notice of funding for the SMART grant came out that same month. July 12 was the deadline to submit the application. My first two months working for INDOT was about trying to secure this grant. Landing $2 million is great for our office and will help us expand," he said. "We want to build a training program in the state that covers the six different districts. We are going to use Purdue Polytech to teach students about flying drones, data collection and using software to render the data. We want to show this is not sci-fi stuff, but this is the future."
Heidenreich works on the east side of Indianapolis for INDOT, but is a Washington native who graduated from WHS in 2017.
He says he got interested in drones and technology in high school.
"I have always been into technology. It always interested me. When I was in high school, someone from Indiana State came in and talked at the public library," said Heidenreich. "My mom is the director at the library and I would go to a lot of the programs. I heard this guy talk and at the time Indiana State had one of the first and best drone programs in the country. I thought it was fascinating, so I decided to study unmanned systems at Indiana State and graduated from there in 2020. I also had a major in aviation technology. It has turned out to be something I really enjoy."
Not only something that he enjoys, but also something that will help people throughout the state by using high tech drones to improve the state highway system.
"What we want to accomplish is to build a framework and set up training programs. We will be doing research on different aircraft and censors. We want to figure out what is easiest to fly and to train on. The initial phase will be about building up a program that is more modern to improve the data collection," said Heidenreich. "We are looking into potentially using this for maintenance and mapping."
Final paperwork is being signed to collect the grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation . The actual work is expected to begin in the spring and then continue for 18 months.
Regulatory restrictions have prevented the USDOT from purchasing drones from Chinese companies or drones constructed with Chinese parts.
That has caused the state to build a new fleet that is completely in compliance with the National Defense Authorization ACT.
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