Alion Science and Technology has been awarded a $20 million task order from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, with a 60-month period of performance to provide Autonomy and Navigation Technology (ANT) Development.
“Alion has some of the greatest engineering and technology minds in industry partnering side-by-side with our customers to face challenging issues and create technologies, solutions and advancements in innovation to keep our nation ahead,” says Eric Wright, Alion’s vice president of the Integrated Solutions Operation within the Advanced Technology Group.
Research
Research
Weekend Roundup: August 28, 2020
This Week (and last week) in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World
On Aug. 18, U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Shaneka Shaw, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron-1 (VMU-1), a weapons and tactics instructor (WTI), graduated from the MQ-9 Basic and Requalification/Transition Course 2 class 20-03, and became the first Black female Marine qualified to fly MQ-9 Reapers at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. Shaw spent 55 training days learning to fly the MQ-9 at Holloman. (Air Education and Training Command)
Weekend Roundup: August 14, 2020
This Week in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World
Autonomous trucking startup Locomation announced this week that it has successfully completed its first on-road pilot transporting commercial freight. In partnership with Aon, a risk management consultancy, and Wilson Logistics, a transportation logistics company, Locomation deployed two trucks hauling trailers in a driverless convoy on a 420-mile-long route stretching from Portland to Nampa, Idaho along I-84. (VentureBeat)
Oneida County, New York awarded task order for Advanced Air Mobility development
Through a NASA contract with its UAS Test Site at Griffiss International Airport, Oneida County, New York has been awarded an $897,000 task order for Advanced Air Mobility development.
To support high-density vertiport operations that allow for vertical take-off and landing aircraft, the county’s UAS test site, which is one of just seven sanctioned UAS test sites by the FAA in the U.S., will conduct research in automation technology for NASA.
“Oneida County’s long-standing partnership with NASA has proven to be a productive one,” says Executive Anthony J. Picente Jr., who announced the award.
University of Alabama awarded grant to research how UAS can be used during disasters
The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has announced that it will receive $1.1 million of the $3.3 million in research, education and training grants awarded to universities that make up the FAA’s Air Transportation Center of Excellence (COE) for UAS, which is also known as the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE).
UAH will serve as the lead institution for disaster preparedness and response research to provide insight into the safe integration of UAS into the disaster preparedness and response areas.
Weekend Roundup: August 7, 2020
This Week in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Navy have signed a new agreement to jointly expand the development and operations of unmanned maritime systems in the nation’s coastal and world’s ocean waters. Through the agreement, NOAA will accelerate its science, service and stewardship mission by leveraging the Navy’s expertise, infrastructure, best practices and training. (NOAA)
PRICE Systems helps eVTOL aircraft innovators convert the concept of affordably flying
For electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to become a regular part of society, it will be important to realize large economy of scale, there must be enough demand to achieve the critical mass of adoption, and the public must be accepting of the technology, according to Dr. Nate Sirirojvisuth, senior cost research analyst at cost estimating company PRICE Systems.
In an email interview with AUVSI, Sirirojvisuth hypothesizes that eVTOL will likely start off as a niche product in the short term, providing value-added to the most affluent sections of society.
UC Riverside engineers awarded grant to develop new generation of GPUs for autonomous systems
The National Science Foundation has awarded three University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) engineers a $1.2 million grant to develop a new generation of energy-efficient, energy-elastic, and real-time-aware Graphics processing units (GPUs) that can be used in resource-constrained environments such as emerging embedded and autonomous systems, including UAS and autonomous vehicles.
Daniel Wong, Hyoseung Kim, and Nael Abu-Ghazaleh are the recipients of the grant. All three are Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering faculty members, and are professors of electrical and computer engineering.
Mississippi State University's Raspet Flight Research Laboratory designated as the FAA's UAS Safety Research Facility
Mississippi State University’s (MSU) Raspet Flight Research Laboratory has been designated as the FAA’s UAS Safety Research Facility.
This designation puts the research center at the forefront of studying and developing safety and certification standards as UAS continue to be integrated into U.S. airspace.
“Mississippi State University is a national research leader in many fields, and our foundational work with unmanned aircraft has positioned us, as this selection demonstrates, to help write the flight safety plan for this potentially transformational aspect of the aviation industry,” says MSU President Mark E. Keenum.
