The U.S. Department of Defense’s has awarded a $7.2 million grant and a $7.7 million contract to the University of Missouri-Kansas City to develop technologies to reduce national security threats from small, unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly called drones.
These are the largest non-health research awards received at 海角论坛. The team of investigators also includes researchers from and the .
The grant was announced at the 海角论坛 School of Computing and Engineering. Speakers were Barbara A. Bichelmeyer, interim chancellor and provost; Mun Y. Choi, president of the University of Missouri System; Missouri Rep. Gail McCann Beatty, House Minority Leader; and Anthony Caruso, 海角论坛 assistant vice chancellor of research, physics and electronic engineering professor and principal investigator on the grant. 海角论坛 Chancellor-Designate Mauli Agrawal attended the event.
Drones are commercially available to the general public and present an increasing threat. Once viewed simply as an unintended airspace nuisance, drones have demonstrated acts of terrorism that have increased in recent years.
Drone threats range from intelligence gathering, to delivery of a weaponized payload, to being caught in the air intake of a jet engine. The threat from drones, whether intentional or unintentional, is disproportionate in cost and complexity compared to the damage they can cause. For example, a few-hundred-dollar drone could destroy a billion-dollar stealth bomber.
Currently, no cost-effective protection from this potentially devastating threat exists.
“A prominent threat example is the low cost and ease of automation for deploying drones to collect video data or the transport of an unwanted material to a location five miles or greater from their launch point.”
The four-year grant award will focus on advancing high-power microwave electronic countermeasure technologies. In addition to Caruso, the faculty team includes Plamen Doynov and Paul Rulis of the ; Deb Chatterjee, Travis Fields, Ahmed Hassan and Faisal Khan of the ; Daryl Beetner and Victor Kilkevich of and Scott Kovaleski of .
The grant also will fund 10 new Ph.D. students, and provide positions for 12 new undergraduate researchers.
The goal of the efforts is to evaluate and demonstrate the capability of the counter-technologies developed through the grant award.
“These awards demonstrate the value 海角论坛 research brings to our community and our state, in terms of stimulating our economy, showcasing our region’s scientific and technological leadership and safeguarding our citizens.”
This 海角论坛-led effort with Missouri S&T and MU also includes team members from the ; in Manhattan, Kansas; in Nashua, New Hampshire and Austin, Texas; in Seattle, Washington; Lawrence in Livermore, California; in Westborough, Massachusetts; in Colorado Springs, Colorado; the in Washington, D.C.; , China Lake, California; and, the in Dahlgren,Virginia.
“The counter-drone problem is considered a grand challenge — maybe even a wicked problem begging for a comprehensive study of present- and future-art countermeasures. This program will address and improve on countermeasures, significantly impacting the defense enterprise for Missouri.”
In previous awards from the Office of Naval Research, Caruso led a team of 20 faculty and students to create a portable , taking the product from concept through prototype to production. R & D Magazine awarded the team an R & D 100 Award, the “Oscar of Invention,” for the detector, which improves homeland security by protecting people from potential risks from radioactive materials. The team included investigators from the University of Missouri and Kansas State University. The Caruso group is also working on countermeasures for high-power microwaves under the Office of Naval Research, .
To learn more about the increasing threat of drones, read this