Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory

AVFL

Recognition

    1. Building the perfect personal flying vehicle – link
    2. Farid Saemi is runner-up in 2019 Robert Lichten Award competition – link
    3. David Coleman wins best paper award at 2018 American Helicopter Society Forum – link
    4. AVFL wins Phase 1 GoFly Prize – link
    5. McElreath named 2018 American Helicopter Society Robert L. Lichten Award runner-up – link
    6. Coleman wins first place at American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics International Student Competition – link 
    7. Professor Benedict featured in The Economist – link
    8. Kanika Gakhar wins Outstanding Engineering Student Award – link
    9. Benedict receives NSF grant to research Hummingbird-inspired aerial robots – link
    10. Xuan Yang wins best paper award – link
    11. AVFL pioneers novel propulsion method – link
    12. AVFL students win awards at regional AIAA student conference – link
    13. AVFL students win VFS scholarships – link
    14. Carolyn Walthers wins Lichten Paper contest – link
    15. AVFL featured in IEEE Spectrum – link
    16. Adam Kellen wins Outstanding Senior award – link
    17. AVFL receives grant to research novel propulsion system – link
    18. David Coleman wins best paper award- link
    19. Carl Runco wins Lichten paper contest – link
    20. AVFL wins AIAA regional student paper contest – link
    21. Texas A&M awarded $1.3M for transformational energy technology – link
  • One of the 5 phase-II winners globally for the $2M Boeing GoFly Prize (link).
  • One of the 10 phase-I winners (from 600 global entries) for the $2M Boeing GoFly Prize (link).
  • 2018 university nominee for the Gordon Betty Moore Foundation Moore Inventor Fellowship.
  • Best Paper Award in the Modeling and Simulation session (AIAA Aviation Conference 2019).
  • TAMU College of Engineering 2018 Young Faculty Fellow Award.
  • TAMU College of Engineering 2017 Dean’s Excellence Award.
  • 2016 François-Xavier Bagnoud Award from American Helicopter Society (AHS) for career-to-date contributions to vertical flight technology under the age of 35 (link).
  • $25K Grand Prize Winner of the Lockheed Martin 2012 Innovate the Future Global Challenge for “Cycloidal Wind Turbine” idea (winner was selected out of 500 entries) (link).
  • 2012 Young Engineer-Scientist of the Year Award from AIAA (link).
  • 6 Best Paper Awards at American Helicopter Society Forums 2011, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19.
  • 2 Robert L. Lichten Awards from American Helicopter Society (one per year) (2016 and 2017).
  • 13 AIAA student conference prizes (8 first places, 4 second places and 1 third place).
  • Athena Award 2010.
  • Ann Wylie Fellowship 2009.
  • University of Maryland Future Faculty Fellow 2008.
  • Best Paper Award at the International Seminar on Advances in Aerospace Sciences, Bangalore, India, December 2003.

“Ahead of the Jetsons: Texas A&M engineers to build flying motorcycle”, Houston Chronicle, May 2019. (link)

“After More Than a Century, the Cyclocopter Is Making a Comeback”, Popular Mechanics, April 2019. (link)

“Texas A&M Team wins second round of Boeing backed flight device competition”, Houston Innovation Map, April 2019. (link)

“Aggie engineering group’s design for flying vehicle taking off”, The Eagle, April 2019. (link)

“Texas A&M’s Harmony Team develops personal flying machine for Boeing’s GoFly Prize Competition”, The Battalion, April 2019. (link)

“Meet the 5 Winners Of GoFly Phase II”, GoFly Prize, March 2019. (link)

“GoFly Prize Picks eVTOL Personal Fliers, Heads Toward Flyoff”, Aviation Week, March 2019. (link)

“Would You Fly On These? Boeing-Funded Contest To Develop Personal Aircraft Picks 5 Finalists”, Forbes, March 2019. (link)

“Russian military is building a flying vehicle with rotating paddles”, NewScientist, March 2019. (link)

“Personal flying machine designs revealed in Boeing GoFly contest”, CNN Travel, June 2018. (link)

“Contest Aims to Lift Personal Flying Machines Off the Page”, New York Times, June 2018. (link)

“Military robots are getting smaller and more capable”, The Economist, December 2017. (link)

“Paddlewheel Propulsion is now Vertical and Multi-Modal”, AHS Vertiflite Magazine, July 2017. (link)

“Tiny drones, big questions”, Aerospace America, February 2017. (link)

“World’s Smallest Cyclocopter Brings Unique Design to Microdrones”, IEEE Spectrum, Nov 10, 2016. (link)

“Robotic Hummingbird”, IEEE Spectrum, May 8, 2015. (link)

“Mutant Quadrotor MAV Lifts Off After a Century of Development”, IEEE Spectrum, July 22, 2011. (link)