REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (Dec. 13, 2016) -- The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center's Aviation Development Directorate, NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and the Navy's Office of Naval Research selected multi-university teams led by Georgia Tech in Atlanta, the University of Maryland in College Park, and Pennsylvania State University in State College as Vertical Lift Research Centers of Excellence.
The VLRCOE constitutes the next stage of the U.S. Army's continuing support of a Rotorcraft Centers of Excellence Program initiated in 1982. "The program focuses on expanding the frontiers of knowledge in research areas where the vertical lift community has enduring needs," said Dr. Mahendra Bhagwat, program manager for the VLRCOE and basic research area lead at AMRDEC's ADD. "It couples state-of-the-art research programs at academic institutions with broad-based graduate education programs to increase the supply of scientists and engineers in vertical lift technology."
The VLRCOE program is a collaborative effort between government and academia to develop, evaluate, demonstrate, and test advanced vertical lift technologies. That includes aeromechanics; structures and material; flight dynamics and control; advanced vertical take-off and landing design and concepts; vibration and noise control; propulsion; affordability; safety and survivability; and human factors engineering. The government has continuous involvement in the program and the research tasks are evaluated annually and redirected as necessary.
"AMRDEC plays a strategic and critical role in enabling future capability for the Warfighter," AMRDEC Director, James Lackey said. "Our mission role in this regard begs for an innovation imperative. This imperative requires value added activities like the VLRCOE. We must greatly improve aviation platform aerodynamic performance whether it be range, endurance, or other operational envelope improvements. Additionally, we must strive to greatly enhance platform and system of system integration within complex, cross-domain battle-space conditions. This is about securing overmatch and winning every future fight."
"NASA and our military partners have made a major commitment to advancing vertical lift research and training of the next generation of vertical lift researchers," said Susan Gorton, project manager for the NASA's Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology Project at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. "Our joint investment of more than $22 million over five years will help improve the safety, performance and affordability of civilian and military helicopters and other vertical lift aircraft and lead to innovative concepts that are quieter and easier to fly."
"The Navy is also interested in advanced rotorcraft research," said Dr. Ken Iwanski, Program Officer for the Office of Naval Research. "Additionally, our needs include the study of how helicopters are employed and can be better integrated into shipboard operations and other naval applications."
The multi-university team includes faculty researchers and students from Iowa State University in Ames: the Ohio State University in Columbus; Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Washington University in St. Louis; Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona; University of California at Davis; University of Tennessee, Knoxville: United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; University of Texas at Arlington; University of Texas in Austin; and Texas A&M University, College Station.
Basic research collaborations with international academic partners include the University of Liverpool in Great Britain, Technion- Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Technical University Munich in Germany, and Roma Tre University in Italy.
The university centers of excellence are jointly funded by the Army at about $3 million a year, the Navy at $1 million dollars a year, and NASA at $500 thousand a year. The five-year agreements will be administered by the Army Contracting Command located at Ft. Eustis.
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The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to provide innovative research, development and engineering to produce capabilities that provide decisive overmatch to the Army against the complexities of the current and future operating environments in support of the joint warfighter and the nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.
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