Research Areas
KUAE faculty, students and researchers conduct research in all traditional aerospace disciplines, funded primarily by government agencies and private industry. Because flight vehicles are very complex systems, most research endeavors are multi-disciplinary. Core research strengths include unmanned aerial systems, computational fluid dynamics, composite and adaptive structures, and robotics and control.
Research Cards 1
Propulsion and Power represents a multi-disciplinary system research endeavor that includes such disciplines as: physics of fluids, thermodynamics, thermo-chemistry, materials and structures as well as controls.
KU UAS research works to advance the understanding of structure-sensor interactions, investigate the effects of materials and environments on performance, and ultimately develop low-speed, low-attitude, and lightweight vehicles with increased autonomy.
Aerospace structures research at the University of Kansas comprises fundamental and applied research in support of transportation, defense, airborne remote sensing and energy.
The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) is a Science and Technology Center with the mission of developing new technologies and computer models to measure and predict the response of sea level change to the mass balance of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
Research Cards 2
Aerodynamics research represents a multi-disciplinary system research endeavor that includes experimental, computational and theoretical studies.
Astrodynamics research focuses on orbital mechanics; space surveillance; aeronomy; estimation theory; trajectory design; optimal control in rarified atmospheres; rendezvous and relative motion guidance; and machine learning for guidance, navigation and control.
The University of Kansas hosts one of the nation's oldest and most successful aircraft design programs. Started by Prof. Jan Roskam in 1967, the program started winning awards from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1969.