The Vehicle Systems focus area concentrates on the core disciplines required to understand, design, and control complex aerospace systems. The focus area is divided into two complementary topics. The Fluid Dynamics topic area addresses fundamental steady and unsteady aerodynamics and hydrodynamics. Areas of study within the Systems and Control topic include automatic control systems, linear systems theory, nonlinear control, and system identification. Courses offer a blend of theoretical analysis with hardware experiments to emphasize the practical aspects of real aerospace systems. Advanced courses consider autonomous cooperative unmanned systems with an emphasis on the role of communication and sensing in vehicle coordination.
Research within the focus area integrates the traditional aerospace engineering disciplines of aerodynamics, heat transfer, navigation, control, and vehicle design with telecommunications, sensors, networking, and robotics. Research projects investigate fundamental aspects of aerospace systems across large spatial and temporal scales, from the fluid dynamics of miniature biomedical devices to large-scale networking between unmanned aircraft. Ongoing research efforts consider: integrated sensing systems for in situ atmospheric sensing, the design of flocks of micro-air vehicles and other miniature unmanned systems, bio-inspired aerial and underwater vehicles, micro and nanofluidics, microscale heat transfer, controlled mobility for ad-hoc communication networks, vision-based autonomous control, hypersonic flows, high speed propulsion, and multidisciplinary analysis and design optimization.
VS Faculty:
Brian M. Argrow, Professor, Look Engineering Professor, Director of RECUV, College of Eng.& Applied Science Assoc. Dean for Education
Sedat Biringen, Professor
Eric W. Frew, Assistant Professor
Harvey M. Gates, Associate Professor Adjunct
Kevin Gifford, Senior Research Associate
Jean N. Koster, Professor
Dale A. Lawrence, Associate Professor
Kamran Mohseni, Associate Professor
Scott Palo, Associate Professor
Ryan Starkey, Assistant Professor, McAnally Fellow