Teamwork for UAS Excellence
The ASSURE team consists of 20 leading universities that offer unmatched research
personnel, capabilities, facilities and capacity in more than 200 locations across
16 states and nine countries.
Wichita State University is a member of the new center known as the Alliance for System
Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE), which will play a key role in
helping the FAA develop rules regulating commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
ASSURE, which will be led by Mississippi State University, will provide the FAA and
industry with research to maximize the potential of commercial unmanned systems with
minimal changes to the current system regulating manned aircraft.
Congress appropriated $5 million for the five-year agreement with the center, which
will be matched one-for-one by the team members. The FAA expects the center will be
able to begin research by September 2015 and be fully operational and engaged in a
robust research agenda by January 2016.
Wichita State and its National Institute for Aviation Research have performed UAS
research and testing in many areas, including low-speed aerodynamics testing for the
Boeing Scan Eagle Compressed Carriage and the Raytheon Small Diameter Bomb; Full-Scale
Structural static testing on the Boeing UCAS; and human factors evaluation of operator
stations for General Atomics. Additional areas of expertise include material properties,
susceptibility to environmental factors, computational analysis and advanced coatings
applications.
This alliance features expertise across a broad spectrum of research areas, including:
- Air traffic control interoperability
- UAS airport ground operations
- Command and control communications
- Detect and avoid
- Human factors
- UAS noise reduction
- UAS wake signatures
- Unmanned Aircraft Pilot Training and Pilot Certification
- Low altitude operations safety
- Spectrum management
- UAS traffic management
Additionally, the coalition features among its members:
- Two FAA UAS test sites
- Three FAA research centers
- 5 airfields
- 80+ UAS fleet
A coalition of multi-disciplinary partners working together to achieve exceptional results as unmanned aircraft systems take flight in the domestic airspace.
The Core Team is as follows:
- Drexel University
- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
- Kansas State University
- Mississippi State University
- Montana State University
- New Mexico State University
- North Carolina State University
- Oregon State University
- University of Alabama-Huntsville
- University of Alaska-Fairbanks
- University of California Davis
- University of Kansas
- University of North Dakota
- Ohio State University
- Wichita State University
The Affiliate Team is as follows: