We are seeing many top colleges and universities implementing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV Programs along with their newest robotic engineering schools. One of the latest trends in UAV design is to make these new aerial vehicles very small perhaps ypu have indeed seen the trend I am discussing? What is driving this new industry is the science and of course business, together these two factors tend to drive the technology and of course the military and Department of Homeland Security buying. All these groups must work seamlessly together. Innovators, entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers must be on the same page for a new concept or emerging technology of any type to work.

If you have been watching there are sub sector growing trends within the UAV community, for instance blimp technologies, new materials for dirigibles, inflatable wings, etc and they are definitely an important direction in which those designing UAVs, MAV and Micro organic replica MAVs, must be thinking. If you go online at Google Images and search you will see some ideas. I myself have had concepts the Blimp type technologies and concepts, as well as submersible UAV-AUV combos? Both will be needed for military and commercial applications in the future.

For those graduate students designing and engineering prototypes; I suppose money issues could be an issue, as development money is needed to live and still work; plus materials, sensors and equipment are very costly and will hamper both student and school budgets, but Indeed there are ways to get such things done working with sponsors and industry.

What many of these students really need is a monthly paycheck for two-years and $120,000 for parts and materials it sounds to build their prototypes. There are ways to do this through government grants however most include an unfortunate level of disgusting bureaucracy. I have never understood why Government Agencies do not understand how much bang for the buck they can get by assisting small entrepreneurs in such things. And what these entrepreneurs can give back in return as they grow their companies, both for military and those technologies they are given permission for and allowed to pursue with commercial transfer of such technology. This indeed also assists large defense contractors with a steady influx of new ideas, concepts and things to sell the government, develop and add to their own research and development divisions. Many larger companies look to find these smaller companies to buy and integrate which can be beneficial for both the entrepreneur and the mega-corporation.

Any engineer worth their salt must agree that DARPA is a very smart group to get involved with. If you want someone to review your design and concept, I would tell them to send in a paper, drawings and digital pictures to DARPA and they would be willing to do so. They would be glad to exercise their brightest minds and they love such challenges. So may find yourself with a proof of concept solicitation if it is good enough.

If you are an engineer, grad student or tinkerer with a small company and prototype of such a workable concept and are looking for DARPA to fund you they are looking for bleeding edge technologies and such things, if you can write it up as a scientific paper, plans and design and send it, perhaps a short video and some digital pictures, you may find yourself in a good spot, or better yet a contestant in the Next Big DARPA Type Challenge, you should be thinking about that.