MSU鈥檚 Luxion, Breckenridge share expertise at U.S. Senate hearings
Contact: Diane Godwin and James Carskadon
WASHINGTON, D.C.鈥旂哿κ悠 was well-represented in Washington, D.C. last week as two university leaders shared their expertise with the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Col. Stephen 鈥淟ux鈥 Luxion (Ret.), executive director of the MSU-led Federal Aviation Administration Center of Excellence for UAS Research, or ASSURE, testified in a Sept. 28 hearing on integrating new entrants into the national airspace system, providing senators with an update on ASSURE鈥檚 accomplishments since its 2015 launch and the work that still needs to be done to fully integrate uncrewed aircraft systems into the U.S. airspace. During a Sept. 29 hearing entitled 鈥淪ecuring U.S. Leadership in Emerging Computer Technologies,鈥 MSU Director of High Performance Computing Trey Breckenridge encouraged lawmakers to continue technology and research and development investments in order to advance and protect the nation鈥檚 economic and security interests.
MSU was selected to lead the FAA鈥檚 UAS Center of Excellence in 2015 to provide the agency with the academic research, data and support needed to safely integrate UAS, commonly referred to as drones, in the national airspace system. Since then, ASSURE has supported more than 60 projects related to advanced air mobility, cybersecurity, integrating UAS in disaster response and more, Luxion said. He added that the coalition鈥檚 work has led to additional opportunities.
鈥淎SSURE continues to develop a network of worldwide affiliations to harmonize rulemaking and standards globally,鈥 Luxion said. 鈥淐anada, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Singapore now have affiliate universities in the ASSURE consortium.
鈥淭he COE鈥檚 work supporting the FAA has led to other developments. We are engaged in nine studies for NASA, which investigate the technologies to support uncrewed aircraft traffic management critical to beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations, multi-UAS control, and improved aviation weather forecasting below 500 feet.鈥
ASSURE is comprised of 26 of the world鈥檚 leading research institutions and more than 100 leading industry and government partners. ASSURE members are core to three FAA UAS test sites, lead four FAA research centers, have seven airfields and a 340 UAS fleet 鈥 24 more UAS than the U.S. Air Force. This alliance features expertise across a broad spectrum of research areas, including: Air traffic control interoperability, UAS airport ground operations, control and communications, detect-and-avoid, human factors, UAS noise reduction, UAS wake signatures, unmanned aircraft pilot training and certification, low altitude operations safety, spectrum management and UAS traffic management.
To read, Luxion鈥檚 submitted testimony, visit .
During his testimony, Breckenridge reinforced the importance of the recent passage of the CHIPS and Science Act and advocated it as a necessary action for the U.S. to match global competitors鈥 investments in critical technology areas for artificial intelligence, quantum information science and distributed ledger technologies. He encouraged lawmakers to take additional steps to ensure domestic semiconductor manufacturing, as well as research and design, in order to sustain and protect the nation as a world leader.
鈥淭he CHIPS and Science Act is an excellent first step to combat this issue,鈥 Breckenridge said. 鈥淚 would also like to applaud the bill sections related to EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) funding and the impacts it will have to vastly expand the talent base in the critical fields necessary to remain a global leader. We have proven that EPSCoR institutions like MSU can be a national leader in technology fields such as high-performance computing, contributing to the advancement of necessary technology while playing a significant role in cultivating the workforce for tomorrow鈥檚 innovative leaders.鈥
For the past 30 years Breckenridge has orchestrated numerous super computing systems at MSU鈥檚 High Performance Computing Collaboratory. He has put together high-performance computing systems with the capacity to provide support for research in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, cybersecurity, data science, weather modeling and other areas of applied research vital to the prosperity of the U.S. and the world. As a result, 幺力视频 has had a presence on the world鈥檚 TOP500 fastest computers list since 1996. At its debut in 2019 the Orion supercomputer, a 5.5 petaFLOPS system operated in partnership with NOAA, ranked 60th in the world and 5th in U.S. academia.
To read Breckenridge鈥檚 written testimony submitted for the hearing, visit .
MSU is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.