The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded grants worth $7.5 million combined to support eight unmanned aircraft research, training and education efforts under the agency’s Centers of Excellence (CoE) institutions.
FAA said Friday the selected universities represent the Department of Transportation (DOT) component’s Air Transportation CoE for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) network.
The CoE group, also dubbed the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE), secured 19 awards for the grant program's third round for fiscal year 2020.
The new funding brings the current FY 2020 amount of ASSURE funding to $13.4 million.
Elaine Chao, the secretary of transportation, said the federal investment is meant to fund the universities’ efforts related to “the safe integration of drones into our national airspace.”
Topic areas covered by the grants include low-altitude UAS detection, airport safety approaches, flutter flight testing and wake turbulence, urban air mobility, UAS mapping, cybersecurity and remote identification.
