Collaborative Research: CRI - RUI: II - NEW: ATTRACT: Aerial and Terrestrial Testbed for Research in Aerospace, Computing, and maThematics

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The objective of this project is to inspire students at Tuskegee University and Auburn University in mathematics, aerospace science engineering, and networking by inviting them to contribute to a grand project: fly safely and efficiently, in a limited space, a fleet of autonomous UAVs on a cooperative mission with terrestrial vehicles. The team of Dr. Sriram Vishwanath at the University of Texas (UT) Austin will deliver six Proteus modules (terrestrial vehicles) and will assist the team at Tuskegee University (TU) and Auburn University (AU) to build for this project six other Proteus modules adapted to the ultimate objective of this project. Dr. Biaz and his students will develop and implement at Auburn University the networking protocols that will allow all terrestrial and aerial vehicles to communicate with each other. The implementation will be made through series of laboratory exercises and research projects collaboratively conducted at Tuskegee University and Auburn University. Intellectual Merit: This project will set up a research infrastructure that enables laboratory exercises in mathematics, aerospace and computer networking. For each discipline, students will contribute to the solution of challenging problems. To this day, most research on mobile ad hoc networks is conducted through simulation. This research infrastructure will allow students to test and evaluate the most promising networking protocols with hardware-in-the-loop. In mathematics, students will realize for example that solving a system of equations not only can obviously determine the position of a vehicle but also can be directly used to enable networking coding and improve communications efficiency. Broader Impacts:Tuskegee University is the only HBCU with an ABET-accredited Aerospace Engineering program and graduates the largest number of African-American aerospace engineers in the US. This research infrastructure will contribute to attract and retain students in STEM fields at Auburn University and Tuskegee University in general and under-represented minorities in particular. The multidisciplinary collaboration between Tuskegee University, UT Austin and Auburn University will benefit students from these institutions to work in a multi-disciplinary environment and will expose them to state of the art education and research. The results of the collaborative effort will be disseminated through presentations at engineering education and other professional conferences.