The University of Kansas Aerospace Engineering Flight Systems Research

KU) is a national and international leader in research and development of radars for remote sensing and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for Earth Science missions.KU has had a long history of design, manufacturing, and flight testing UAS's dating back to 1999.As the most visible of our programs, the Meridian is also the largest UAV platform ever designed, built, and successfully flight tested autonomously by an academic institution.The Meridian is an 1,100 lb UAS designed for Polar research and has been flight tested autonomously in three continents (North America, Europe, and Antarctica).In the last few years, KU Aerospace Engineering (KUAE) has performed 75 flights and over 24 hours of autonomous line-of-sight and over-the-horizon flight test.KU has successfully flight tested different UAS platforms in one of the most hostile and remote environments known to the aviation industry (Polar Regions).KUAE's 7 autonomous fixed wing UAS range from 28 to 1,100 lbs.KUAE owns two manned experimental aircraft (Cessna C-172 and Cessna C-182) for rapid technology development.The KU Flight Systems team has three primary focuses: Avionics, guidance, navigation and control, and nonlinear dynamic analysis.