Student's unmanned aircraft design earns Homeland Security attention

Monday, February 4, 2013

OSU students created this innovative design for an unmanned aircraft, which has led to national recognition by the Department of Homeland Security.

A team of aerospace engineering students from Oklahoma State University has been selected by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to move to the next phase of theBORDERS Small Unmanned Aircraft System Competition.

The competition rewards innovative SUAS design concepts meeting the requirements of border and maritime surveillance missions.

“The platform that we have been contracted to design, build and test will add to our already impressive custom unmanned aircraft fleet and will provide a unique test bed to examine novel propulsion and payload concepts,” said Dr. Jamey Jacobs, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor. “This will provide additional capability to our group.

The Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) Competition, under the leadership of the Borders and Maritime Security Division (BMD) and Office of University Programs (OUP) of DHS, challenges students to develop prototypes for SUAS based on government-provided design criteria. The project will also examine the systems for potential use by the first responder community for such missions as disaster recovery, fire and police response, and search and rescue.

OSU is among four teams to receive this honor. Other universities include Purdue, Texas A&M and St. Louis University.

“This was the first competition that our graduate students have been involved in since the inception of the UAS program,” said Jacobs. “So to be selected and ranked at the top is an impressive achievement for the students and speaks highly to their capabilities.”

The OSU team was selected for their innovated unmanned aircraft platform integrating a quiet propulsion system into an small aerodynamic platform.

The lead project engineer for the OSU team is Ph.D. student Thomas Hays. In additional to Dr. Jacob, faculty advisors include Dr. Andy Arena, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at OSU and Dr. Rick Gaeta, professor from the University Multispectral Lab.

The project is administered by National Center for Border Security and Immigration (BORDERS) at the University of Arizona.

For more information on additional OSU research and innovative designs related to unmanned aircraft systems, contact Dr. Jamey Jacobs at jdjacob@okstate.edu.