Partnerships on rise between drone makers and universities.

• Author: Insinna, Valerie
• Position: COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS

As commercial demand for unmanned aircraft grows, manufacturers and universities are increasingly joining forces on efforts to train pilots and develop new technologies.

During the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in May, Northrop Grumman and the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks announced a cooperative agreement in which the school will use SandShark unmanned aerial systems for training and research.

Northrop Grumman will provide the university with two aircraft and a ground station under the three-year agreement, said Ken Kilmurray, the company's program manager.

The SandShark was designed to improve pilot proficiency, particularly difficult maneuvers such as takeoffs and landings, he said. "It can also be used to determine the aptitude of potential pilots, a screening tool, and decrease the failure rate in training. Those combined save a lot of money across the life of the program."

The university has yet to decide how SandShark will initially be deployed, but it is considering using it in two programs, said Al Palmer, director of the university's center for unmanned aerial systems training, research and education and a retired Air Force brigadier general. The first, the limited deployment of cooperative aircraft project, is a research effort to create a sense-and-avoid system that incorporates automatic dependent surveillance broadcast, or ADS-B, transceivers.

"We've had that program going for almost three years now, but we plan on doing a second phase of that. If it's approved, we will use this airplane in some form or fashion," he said.

The university is also considering outfitting the SandShark with advanced avionics that are closer to that of manned airplanes, Palmer...