ECE FACULTY AWARDED $538,000 NASA GRANT

Stephen Gray and Oscar Gonzalez of the electrical and computer engineering department have been awarded a $538,000, three-year contract by NASA Langley Research Center to study the effects of high-intensity radiated fields on fly-by-wire computer control systems.

The award is part of NASA's Aviation Safety Program, which is committed to "reducing the aircraft accident rate by 80 percent within 10 years."

Effective through March 2003, the award will provide support for fundamental research in stochastic modeling, stability analysis and robust performance of digital flight control systems used in commercial aircraft like the Boeing 777.

This is the third such award by NASA to this research team, which began working on the problem in fall 1997.