OSU to use funding to improve safety for UAS flying in Advanced Air Mobility operations

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A team of researchers from Oklahoma State University (OSU) has been recognized with the University Leadership Initiative (ULI) Award from NASA, and will receive $5.2 million in funding over the next four years to address some of NASA’s strategic research initiatives.

Featuring faculty members and students from the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology, the OSU team will seek to improve real-time weather forecasting of low-level winds and turbulence in both rural and urban environments, with the ultimate goal of improving safety for UAS flying in Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations.

Jamey Jacob, the director of OSU’s Unmanned Systems Research Institute, is the project’s principal investigator. The other OSU investigators include professors Brian Elbing, Imraan Faruque and Nicoletta Fala.

OSU’s team is also made up of members from several universities and entities including Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma and Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

“Selection to the NASA University Leadership Program confirms OSU’s expertise and preeminence in unmanned systems, particularly in the area of unmanned aircraft for weather and meteorological applications,” Jacob says.

The lead institution for this initiative, OSU is one of five university teams to receive the ULI award and a share of $32.8 million in funding over the next four years. The other teams awarded were from Stanford University, the University of Delaware, North Carolina A&T State University and the University of South Carolina.

“Each of these teams is working on important problems that definitely will help break down barriers in ways that will benefit the U.S. aviation industry,” says John Cavolowsky, director of NASA’s Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program in Washington, D.C.

The goal of the University Leadership Initiative is to unite NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) and prominent American research universities to produce “new, innovative ideas.”