Aerospace 2015, 2, 189-202; doi:10.3390/aerospace2020189
OPEN ACCESS
aerospace
ISSN 2226-4310
www.mdpi.com/journal/aerospace
Review
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Research Opportunities
Javaan Chahl
1,2
1
School of Engineering, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5001, Australia;
E-Mail: javaan.chahl@unisa.edu.au; Tel.: +61-(0)-883-026-803
2
Joint and Operations Analysis Division, Defence Science and Technology Organisation,
Canberra 2601, Australia
Academic Editor: Rafic Ajaj
Received: 30 January 2015 / Accepted: 20 April 2015 / Published: 27 April 2015
Abstract: The aerospace community is planning for growth in Unmanned Aerial Systems
(UAS) funding and research opportunities. The premise that UAS will revolutionize
aerospace appears to be unfolding based on current trends. There is also an anticipation
of an increasing number of new platforms and research investment, which is likely but must
be analysed carefully to determine where the opportunities lie. This paper draws on the state
of technology, history and systems engineering. We explore what aspects of UAS will be
the result of aerospace science advances and what aspects will be incremental engineering
and systems integration. It becomes apparent that, for academia, the largest opportunities
may exist in small and micro UAS domain due to the novelty of aerospace engineering on
a small scale.
Keywords: unmanned aerial system (UAS); unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV); research;
defense
1. Introduction
Expectations of growth in the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) industry are quite high, Teal Group
predicted that “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) continue as the most dynamic growth sector of the
world aerospace industry this decade” [1]. This is despite the United States Department of Defence
(US DoD), the largest single customer for UAS [2], projecting reduced funding for Research,
Development, Testing and Evaluation [2] of UAS. In an environment containing both growth in inventory
and reduction in research funds it is important to understand which technologies are absolutely required
for progress and which technologies are likely to be advanced by other disciplines outside aerospace.
