Overview

PAWR in Collaborative and Autonomous Drones (PCAD) is a 5 year, ~$30M proposal to develop a city-scale tested for advanced wireless research that will enable disruptive applications of fleets of aerial drones. This proposal is being considered by the PAWR Project Office, the PAWR Industry Consortium, and the US National Science Foundation, and has been developed by world-class researchers and testbed developers from University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame (lead), University of Pennsylvania, Purdue University, and Southern Methodist University. The plan is to deploy the initial footprint of PCAD in the City of South Bend, a medium-sized, entrepreneurial city in northwest Indiana with diverse operating environments and numerous municipal use cases for drones. Regional deployment partners MapleNet Wireless, Hayes Towers, and MetroNet Zing stand ready to work with the wireless and drones ecosystems to rapidly integrate, test, and validate the latest technologies. Finally, the team has experience with FCC Experimental Licenses and FAA waivers necessary to streamline experiments and innovations in this space.

Contact: J. Nicholas Laneman Principal Investigator jnl@nd.edu