Dr. Chase Murray to receive a Research Equipment Award from the Department of Defense

Dr. Chase Murray and students.

Published April 18, 2018 This content is archived.

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Congratulations to Dr. Chase Murray  for being one of the 175 university researchers across 36 states at 91 institutions to receive a Research Equipment Award from the Department of Defense (DoD).

This highly competitive award will be used to construct an outdoor netted enclosure (a so-called "drone dome") to enable UB researchers to conduct research on systems of autonomous aerial vehicles in a secure environment.  This provides the ability to transition research from "lab-to-field."  If all goes according to plan, this football-field-sized enclosure will be the largest such university-operated facility in the country.

Funding from this award will also go towards the purchase of a mobile command center vehicle, additional unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, sensors, and a 3-D printer for mobile use.

"We are so appreciative of the support we've received from the Office of Naval Research (ONR)," says Dr. Murray.  "This funding will provide the foundation for a world-class autonomy research program at UB.  We are already doing exciting research here, but the drone flight facility is something special."

Dr. Murray is part of a multi-disciplinary UB research team, including John Crassidis (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), Chunming Qiao (Computer Science and Engineering), Krishna Rajan (Materials, Design and Innovation), and Moises Sudit (Industrial and Systems Engineering).

The Department of Defense offers these awards through the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP). The program augments research capabilities at universities conducting cutting edge research for DoD, through the procurement of state-of-the-art equipment.

You can find more information about this award here: https://www.onr.navy.mil/Science-Technology/Directorates/office-research-discovery-invention/Sponsored-Research/University-Research-Initiatives/DURIP.aspx