Unmanned Aerial Systems Research

Research Groups

Faculty in the West Virginia University (WVU) Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) have approximately 20 years of experience in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research. There are five groups in the Department that are active in various aspects of UAV research:
• UAV Applied Aerodynamics and Smart Systems Group, led by Wade Huebsch, Patrick Browning, and Jay Wilhelm, specializes in UAV/micro air vehicle (MAV) design, biomimetic application to UAV, experimental and computational fluid dynamics, guidable smart munitions, and multi-vehicle optimal mission planning;
•    Flight Control Systems Laboratory, led by Marcello Napolitano, specializes in flight control and flight testing;
•    Flight Safety Group, led by Mario Perhinschi, specializes in flight simulation and fault-tolerant flight control;
•    Navigation Lab, led by Jason Gross, specializes in UAV autonomous navigation and sensor fusion;
•    Interactive Robotics Laboratory, led by Yu Gu, specializes in avionics design, system integration, and multi-UAV cooperative sensing and control.
The MAE UAV group has combined to publish approximately 40 archival journal articles, 85 peer-reviewed conference papers, and five book chapters all related to the area of unmanned aerial systems. They have received external funding for UAV work from DARPA, NASA, ARL, AFOSR, and the U.S. Army, in addition to various industry partners.