Planning Grant: I/UCRC Center for UAS Site Addition (Virginia Tech)

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The Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS), an Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) established by Brigham Young University and the University of Colorado in 2012, provides innovative solutions to key technical challenges facing the UAS industry and trains a diverse, highly qualified cadre of leaders for this emerging field. In seeking to join the C-UAS, as a third university site, Virginia Tech brings expertise in a variety of critical and complementary research areas. Virginia Tech also leads one of six FAA-designated unmanned aircraft system test sites, which presents an opportunity for C-UAS partners to support the FAA's regulatory policy development efforts while establishing a foothold in emerging commercial markets. This planning grant supports Virginia Tech's effort to develop a viable, self-sustaining Site Addition to the C-UAS.The specific research agenda to be addressed within this C-UAS Site Addition will ultimately be determined by the Center's Industry Advisory Board (IAB), including new representatives who commit to join the Center along with Virginia Tech. Likely focus areas for the expanded C-UAS research program include advanced flight control (e.g., methods to construct robust, secure, and mathematically certified control algorithms), agriculture (e.g., methods to monitor plant pathogen transport), machine vision and machine learning (e.g., software for real-time, on-board intelligent image processing), multiphysics design optimization (e.g., aircraft design optimization tools that incorporate unsteady fluid/structure interaction), safety and airworthiness (e.g., reliability prediction methods that incorporate imprecise uncertainties intrinsic to small UAS), and wireless communications (e.g., the use of software defined radio and intelligent communication protocols that adapt the information flow to the environmental conditions). Proposals for specific research tasks will be developed in coordination with prospective industry and government partners to ensure that those partners are fully engaged in the process and committed to the research program.