REU Site: Interdisciplinary Research Experiences in Advanced Air Mobility for Undergraduates (IREAAMU)

This is a three-year new proposal for an REU Site titled, "REU Site: Interdisciplinary Research Experiences in Advanced Air Mobility for Undergraduates (IREAAMU)", hosted by the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Ten students each year will conduct research related to air mobility related projects and technologies. The project will seek to increase participation of female, underrepresented minorities, and people with disabilities in the sector.

Climate change, overpopulation, and traffic congestion are pressing issues that pose unprecedented societal challenges. Safe, efficient, equitable, and sustainable transportation systems are promising to alleviate these challenges and issues. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) has emerged as a disruptive technology that offers a way to create such transportation systems by enabling transformative paradigms for advanced air transportation such as novel passenger or cargo-carrying services in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

AAM research does not simply refer to new aircraft designs such as the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) technology and does not only focus on engineering. Human and societal factors are also critical to AAM. Research in transportation management and public policies can also be a form of AAM research.

AAM research is interdisciplinary and requires theoretical development, analytical modeling, integrative simulation, experimental tests, and real-world implementation. This 10-week summer REU program provide a welcoming environment for students to work closely with a diverse group of AAM experts. The goal is to train the next-generation AAM experts by investigating novel technologies, infrastructures, and polices needed for enabling safe, efficient, equitable, and sustainable transportation systems.

This is a three-year new proposal for an REU Site titled, "REU Site: Interdisciplinary Research Experiences in Advanced Air Mobility for Undergraduates (IREAAMU)", hosted by the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Ten students each year will conduct research related to air mobility related projects and technologies. The project will seek to increase participation of female, underrepresented minorities, and people with disabilities in the sector.

Through a targeted recruiting strategy, this REU site will bolster the participation of under-represented minorities in undergraduate research, particularly in the AAM area. Leveraging UTK’s existing relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the Tennessee Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, and the Entry Point! program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ten students each summer from colleges and universities with limited research opportunities will be recruited.

The proposed research projects, along with the professional development activities and networking opportunities with international students recruited and supported by partner universities from Hong Kong, provides students with exciting and engaging experiences in the interdisciplinary AAM field. Participants will work closely with a demographically diverse, interdisciplinary group of faculty mentors and their research teams on projects related to various aspects of AAM.

The REU students will be exposed to the state-of-the-art AAM technologies, participate in the process of designing, modeling, planning, and operating new AAM concepts, and visit labs and companies to explore how AAM can enable safe, efficient, equitable, and sustainable transportation systems.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.