Students and faculty in the Department of Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems Engineering are some of the more prolific researchers in the Embry-Riddle family. The department's research expenditures are nearly one-half those of the entire College of Engineering, with support from federal agencies including NSF, FAA, and NOAA as well as industry partners. The department is heavily involved in projects managed by ERAU's NEAR Lab and by the COE's Eagle Flight Research Center.

Strategic department research directions include three areas critical for the future of aerospace. These are:

  • Detect and avoid technologies for unmanned aircraft systems;
  • Assured systems for aerospace, including cybersecurity and development assurance;
  • Modeling and simulation for aviation and aerospace.

Detect and avoid technologies enable unmanned aircraft systems to "see and be seen" by other aircraft and by air traffic controllers on the ground. Of particular challenge is detect and avoid of uncooperative aircraft, those aircraft that aren't equipped to announce their position either automatically or in response to interrogations from the ground.

Assured systems are those that are robust in the face of cybersecurity challenges, with assured development being system design approaches that yield assured systems without high overhead.

Modeling and simulation for aviation involves everything from the logistics of getting passengers onto aircraft to planning how to get all air traffic around predicted bad weather without upsetting arrival times and locations.

Encouraging Students to Pursue an Engineering Education and Career

PI Massood Towhidnejad

This NSF-sponsored project provides scholarship for engineering students pursuing degrees in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and software engineering.

Working closely with faculty and student mentors, scholarship recipients are involved in multi-disciplinary projects involving unmanned and autonomous systems throughout their four years of undergraduate study.

Researchers

  • Massood Towhidnejad

    Massood Towhidnejad

    Department
    Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept
    Degrees
    Ph.D., M.S., B.S., University of Central Florida