The Department of Defense has selected four universities to perform research and development projects aimed at advancing the development of hypersonic weapons technology.
Each university secured one-year, $500,000 applied research awards focused on several research areas including navigation systems, scramjets, velocity and altitude control mechanisms and hypersonic aeroshells monitoring, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Texas A&M University will work with Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Sandia National Laboratories and Boeing, to develop navigation systems designed to maintain the stability of the feedback control system for hypersonic vehicles.
The University of Virginia, University of South Wales, Ohio State University and the University of Arizona will collaborate with the Air Force Research Laboratory, FGC Plasma Solutions and Lockheed Martin to create a scramjet system improvement to make hypersonic vehicles operational across various flight conditions.
DOD also selected the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the CFD Research Corporation to design and develop novel concepts and technologies for enabling hypersonic vehicles to achieve precise velocities and altitudes.
Moreover, the Florida International University, the University of Rhode Island and Raytheon Technologies Research Center have been tapped to demonstrate a method for monitoring the health and status of hypersonic aeroshells.
The research awards will be managed by the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics and the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office.
