Doris Ratliff 
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Media Contact:
Mack Burke | Associate Director of Media Relations | 405-744-5540 | [email protected]
Oklahoma Point out University’s Dr. Jamey Jacob testified at the Capitol in advance of the United
States Household Committee on Science, House and Technological innovation on March 23 in Washington,
D.C., highlighting the need for ongoing investment decision in drone analysis for the profit
of national protection, technologies progress and the community very good.
The meeting served as the legislative hearing for The Nationwide Drone and Highly developed
Air Mobility Act, a monthly bill released by Rep. Frank Lucas from Oklahoma’s 3rd Congressional
District that aims to supply for a coordinated federal initiative to speed up civilian
unmanned plane methods alongside with superior air mobility investigate and growth
to strengthen economic and national protection.
As government director of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Exploration and Instruction
(OAIRE), director of the Counter-UAS Middle of Excellence and professor of mechanical
and aerospace engineering at OSU, as properly as president of the Unmanned Devices Alliance
of Oklahoma, a chapter of Affiliation for Uncrewed Motor vehicle Systems International (AUVSI),
Jacob continues to be a thought chief in unmanned drone technological know-how, an sector with
key implications for national defense, crisis response and industrial business.
See Jacob’s complete created statement to the committee beneath and abide by this backlink to
see the comprehensive hearing: https://www.youtube.com/enjoy?v=X-jZG_gLeNg.
Penned Statement of Dr. Jamey Jacob
Executive Director of Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education and learning
Williams Chair and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Oklahoma Point out University
Prior to the Committee on Science, Place, and Technological know-how
March 23, 2023Chairman Lucas and Position Member Lofgren:
Thank you for inviting me to testify currently. It is an honor to talk with you about
the work underway in the state of Oklahoma to support advance emerging know-how
in the US in highly developed air mobility (AAM) and safe and sound integration into the countrywide airspace.
In addition to serving as the Govt Director of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute
for Analysis and Schooling, I also provide as Director of the Counter-UAS Heart of
Excellence and as Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma Condition
College, as well as president of the Unmanned Techniques Alliance of Oklahoma, a chapter
of AUVSI.
Because progress of laboratories for autonomous and remotely piloted plane in
the 90s for undergraduate educating applications, Oklahoma Condition College has been a leader
in aerial robotics. As of element of our land grant mission, we have fostered instruction,
investigation, outreach, and application of these programs into places of public use, this kind of
as agriculture, energy, environmental monitoring, and national protection, working with
countrywide labs and industry alike.
We have used this technology to assistance spur curiosity in aerospace and other STEM careers,
specially for less than-represented minorities such as urban parts and tribal nations,
leveraging applications in the Choctaw, Cherokee, and Osage Nations of Oklahoma, offering
new options for these sovereign nations to use this know-how to aid their
tribal users and develop new entrepreneurial things to do inside of their borders and
guidance their federal buyers.
As illustrations of our use influenced exploration and improvement, we are operating with the
FAA to create know-how to insert in navigation and flight inspection, improving upon performance
and reducing cost to continue to keep US airports and aerial navigation protected with NASA to develop
deployable plane to check out Mars and balloons to investigate Venus with countrywide labs
to examine the performance of wind farms oil and gas businesses to research for new
American strength resources and discover sites of fugitive emissions to safeguard precious
natural vitality methods and safeguard the setting examine methods to inspect
crops and livestock and eradicate feral hog infestations study lakes and rivers
to mitigate invasive species, protect endangered kinds, and measure outbreaks of conditions
and blooms lookup for wildfires in rangelands and forests, safeguarding grasslands,
forests, and the firefighters and forest rangers that preserve them creating systems
to watch at-possibility marine mammals these types of as dolphins and whales and doing work with intercontinental
associates these kinds of as Bombtechs without the need of Borders to locate and dispose of unexploded ordnance
in lively overcome zones, which includes Ukraine. These are just some illustrations of the
initiatives that our inventive researchers and students are now doing work on.
Of vital countrywide great importance is OSU’s Counter-UAS Centre of Excellence. Supporting
the desires of each the Departments of Protection and Homeland Security, the Counter-UAS
Heart of Excellence works with personal corporations to examine threats of drones by
condition and non-point out actors utilizing the techniques as the two symmetric and uneven weapons
threating US warfighters and the community, as very well as evaluating methods to detect,
discover, and mitigate these threats. In addition to developing the gold expectations
to assess these defensive methods, the Counter-UAS Center of Excellence is currently
performing with the US Army to develop curricula and coaching abilities for the DoD
Joint Counter-UAS College, housed at Fort Sill, to train solders in Counter-UAS
technological know-how across all branches of the armed service to help bridge the hole in know-how
and instruction.
Federal help has been the catalyst to permit this use encouraged investigate. Federal government
funding has been a potent driver in pushing technological innovation from the laboratories to
conclusion-consumer adoption, crossing the valley of dying that several improvements under no circumstances bridge.
Support from systems this sort of as the NASA University Management Initiative and Nationwide
Science Basis Nationwide Robotics Initiative, has allowed us and other universities
to force the boundaries in applying UAS to increase wind and climate observations and forecasting,
which will result in adoption of AAM options in urban placing, and enormously boost
our capability to precisely forecast significant storms, conserving life and house. The
NASA College Leadership Initiative is an illustration of transformative analysis assist
as it aims to unite NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission and popular American research
universities to develop innovative strategies that let university and sector groups
to offer one of a kind solutions to the most complicated challenges facing aeronautics now.
Technological development is dependent on the fundamental discoveries in the university and
countrywide study labs and ensuing translation to innovation that tiny organizations
and business people excel in, and the scalability to shopper merchandise offered by greater
world-wide organizations. Without the need of the community investment decision from federal analysis funding, the
hazards are much too wonderful for non-public financial investment by itself to build breakthrough technologies
essential for slicing edge products and solutions and new high-tech work opportunities.
As an example of this, by means of EDA funding, in cooperation with private and tribal
partners, we have started the LaunchPad AAM Heart and Flight Range with the Osage
Nation and Tulsa Innovation Laboratories to create novel plans to aid compact
business enterprise innovation and provide special flight-tests solutions, encouraging to bridge
this divide.
To sustain the US lead in this technologies calls for ongoing help of tutorial
investigate funding and greater collaboration amongst universities and personal industries,
allowing for collegiate laboratories to shoulder the stress of large-possibility elementary exploration
and enhancement and allowing for US business people and the American people to earnings from
the benefits that this investigate generates.
The U.S. heartland — flyover place — has often been ignored in favor of coastal
concentrations that historically receive the bulk of investigate funding. Nonetheless, East
and West Coast states commonly absence the accessibility to open small danger airspace afforded
by very low populations, making probable new chances by using flyover state
as fly-in study ranges. This too involves help by federal funding.
Facilities these kinds of as the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma test web page as portion of the FAA Over and above
system are crucial to US abilities. Even more advancement of these and other facilities
that let tests of this know-how to assess use cases and functionality is much
essential to deliver critical basic safety info for the FAA, these as advancing past visible
line of sight drone operations and program cargo deliveries of essential materials for
to start with responders, disaster response, health care emergencies, and impoverished areas.
These new innovations have been developed as a result of community personal partnerships – combinations
of government funding, personal investment decision, and academic investigation and progress from
research labs across the place. This driver of innovation is a strong engine for
economic progress and one of America’s greatest aggressive strengths.
We are in a new golden age of aviation. Like the former golden eras that preceded
this in the 1920s and put up WWII, this new period witnesses the introduction of new technological know-how,
in this situation autonomy and electrification, that will have a large effect on the
US and how folks use aerial transportation for travel and commerce. This era
that we are in the method of birthing will have an even wider attain than the two
that went prior to.
We imagine the long run of advanced aviation is vivid, and that the high-quality of daily life
for all Us residents can be improved by advancing and exploiting this emerging technological innovation.
Investigation executed at land grant and other universities participate in a essential part in this
opportunity prosperity, but we require the federal government’s guidance to make certain that
these technologies flourish and offer the positive aspects to society that we know are doable.
Thank you again for inviting me to share my viewpoints. I will be delighted to answer any
queries that you might have.
