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An Interview with Travis Fields

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Alexis

Alexis: What do you research? Travis: Drones or unmanned systems.
Alexis: What is one project about which you are excited? Travis: Maybe what we’re doing right now for the Air Force. We are trying to learn about drones and how they behave, especially, can they be disrupted. Students are also part of this test program – they get to see real military personnel using real equipment. We are able to then do an assessment on the aircrafts and what happened to them. And also, students are starting to see the holes, where the limitations are in the equipment that the government has right now. The students can see a real need for innovation and discovery. To me that is really exciting.
Alexis: Can you give an example? Travis: Maybe one example might be tracking system radar. It’s really good in some areas but it might not be as good in other areas. We are seeing there are ways to come up with better techniques, to solve problems related to tracking, or related to flying faster. We are currently building a large aircraft, at least for us, that is about 50 pounds with four giant quadcopters, so it can take off vertically and then transition and fly forward. It's a whole carbon fiber airplane and that's been really cool to see come to life. Over the summer we will perform an evaluation, with some tracking systems. We will try to beat it, learn from that, and make the technology better.
Alexis: How do you engage students in your research? Travis: I like experiments – I like to be outside, flying, and helping students get to do that too. This project has afforded unique opportunities that students don’t normally get to have where they are just sitting in front of the computer crunching numbers. To me, that is inspirational and exciting.
Alexis: Have you gone anyplace for field work? Travis: The southwest: New Mexico, California, Arizona. We've been out to DC and southern Virginia to conduct tests… a whole bunch of different sites and locations. A couple standout opportunities - we went out to the NASA vertical spin tunnel for parachute tests. Students also got to ride in the back of a Black Hawk helicopter with the doors open after completing testing. This gave us a tour of the proving grounds we were on for the test. It's been an amazing experience. I also think it has made recruiting easier – students get to tell potential students about these great experiences.
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