Autonomy for civil aviation is still in its infancy and will proceed along many directions, guided by the results of relevant research. Autonomous systems may be used for improving safety,…

This federal contract award, with ID NNX15AV68G, was granted by the Shared Services Center, a civilian federal agency, to The Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford University). The $399,869.86 grant is for a research project focused on developing a modular unmanned aircraft system (UAS) framework to enable customizable autonomy research. The award is not set aside for any specific business designation.

Stanford University, a renowned private research institution, has a long history of performing advanced research and development work for various government agencies, including the Department of Defense, NASA, and the National Institutes of Health. The university's expertise spans diverse fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biomedical research, and renewable energy. This particular grant aims to overcome the lack of available research platforms that can allow testing of new autonomy technologies in a relevant environment, which has been a key obstacle to the progress of autonomy research in civil aviation applications.

Autonomy for civil aviation is still in its infancy and will proceed along many directions, guided by the results of relevant research. Autonomous systems may be used for improving safety, permitting single pilot operation of commercial airliners, protecting piloted aircraft from cfit or other collisions, and for more effective interactions with ATC. Autonomy may also improve efficiency by allowing for lower stability margins that reduce maximum load factors from gusts. In addition, autonomous systems may be the enabling capability to realize various approaches to transformational personal air transportation. Regardless of the specific application, autonomous technology will change the way pilots interact with aircraft, aircraft interact with ATC and with each other, and will enable new missions unrelated to human transportation: unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for communications, remote sensing, atmospheric and earth science, and delivery of goods will enable new industries that exploit the economics, reliability and versatility enabled by flexible scaling and RE-configurability of such vehicles. But the rate of progress of autonomy research has been hampered by the lack of availability of research platforms that can allow the testing of new ideas and technologies in a relevant environment, and without the need for the development of every aspect of a flying research platform. Overcoming this main obstacle to the development of new autonomy technologies is the main focus of this stepb proposal.