NASA Picks 3 Universities to Lead Autonomous Flight Research

The teams—led by the Florida Institute of Technology, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University—will study autonomous safety systems, communication networks for autonomous airspace, and self-diagnostic systems for advanced air mobility (AAM) aircraft.

The three university cohorts could receive as much as $20 million in ULI funding over the next three years. Each team is led by a single university but comprises multiple, with some enlisting help from private companies such as Collins Aerospace and Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences.

“By combining faculty expertise, student innovation, and industry experience, these three teams will advance NASA’s vision for the future of 21st century aviation,” said Koushik Datta, who manages NASA’s University Innovation project at Ames Research Center in California, in a blog post.

The academic initiative dovetails with NASA’s overarching strategy to help the FAA integrate autonomous and other AAM vehicles into the national airspace. In the near future, remotely operated cargo planes, self-flying taxis, and other new designs are expected to share the skies with conventional aircraft.

For example, the space agency on Monday shared new details about its Pathfinding for Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) program. That initiative, part of the broader Air Traffic Management-eXploration (ATM-X) project, aims to automate systems for remote operations, protect communication systems against interruptions, and improve ground-based surveillance to help self-flying aircraft dodge hazards.

A special pod called the Airborne Instrumentation for Real-world Video of Urban Environments (AIRVUE), meanwhile, is helping NASA train AAM aircraft to “see” obstacles in their path. The space agency is also working with commercial partners such as Xwing and Reliable Robotics, which recently began a series of remotely piloted test flights.

Beyond autonomous aircraft and drones, NASA efforts are helping set the stage for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis and other battery-powered models. Joby Aviation—which acquired Xwing in June—for example, partnered with NASA to study eVTOL operations in simulated airspace. Those tests have already produced valuable data that could allow air taxis to integrate with existing air traffic systems.

Joby and other partners are helping NASA research topics like AAM noise and turbulence. For eVTOL developers, it offers its Overflow software—a sophisticated tool that helps manufacturers refine their designs for better acoustic performance.

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