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Embry-Riddle Senior Project Wins ASEE-SE Design Competition

Daytona Beach, Fla., April 12, 2006 -- A team of 20 Computer and Software Engineering students from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University recently took first place in the Junior/Senior design category of the ASEE-SE conference competition with an autonomous national airspace system that controls aircraft movement between airports.

Embry-Riddle’s team of undergraduate students and 20 other teams representing 13 other colleges competed in four categories at the American Society of Engineering Education Southeastern Section annual meeting and conference held April 2-4 at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa.

The Embry-Riddle team demonstrated their AutonoNAS project, an unmanned flight system that can autonomously taxi, take-off, navigate, and land multiple aircraft. This simulated environment system provides collision avoidance and routing from a plane’s departure to its destination.

“Our student team’s project has tremendous potential for application in the real world,” said Dr. Massood Towhidnejad, chairman of Embry-Riddle’s Computer and Software Engineering Department and advisor to the team. “As expected increases in air traffic materialize, systems such as AutonoNAS can help optimize the capacity of our national airspace.”

The Embry-Riddle team consisted of students Ashley Adams, Jaya Aswani, William Bach, Paul Brandau, Romain Cherchi, Nicolas Chevalier, Samuel Chilcote, Jay Daw, Ken Evensen, Nolen Glore, Daniel Gustavsson, Damien Granveaux, Jonathan Jaynes, Il Hwan Lee, Matt Link, Esteban Lugo, Stuart Meyers, Nathan Neitzke, John Shingler, and Joey Wallace. They were divided into six groups: Graphical User Interface, Flight System, Data System, Control System, Operating System, and Hardware.

Dr. Towhidnejad’s co-advisor to the team was Farahzad Behi, associate professor of computing at Embry-Riddle, with support from graduate student assistant Jayson Clifford.

The students created the AutonoNAS system as part of their two-semester capstone project, which is required to complete the B.S. degrees in Computer and Software Engineering at Embry-Riddle.

Some of the schools represented at the ASEE-SE student competition included The Citadel, Mercer University, Mississippi State, University of Alabama, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, University of Alabama-Birmingham, University of Puerto Rico, Virginia Military Institute, and Virginia State.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering. Embry-Riddle educates more than 32,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Extended Campus at more than 130 centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, and through distance learning.