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29 unmanned systems inside April/May 2016 exactly what they're finding, exactly what they're testing," Haun said. In the long run, PrecisionHawk sees its work with ASSURE as supporting integration and the industry as a whole—and by extension, its own more robust future. "It's pretty simple calculus for us," Haun said. "Our business does not exist in the future if there isn't UAS integration." "We also believe that this will be a multilayered solution," he said. "This is not a single company or a single piece of technology solving all the com- plications of UAS integration. So our hope is that by bringing together academia, the government and the industry we will come to a much more holistic solution that will allow a much broader UAS integration environment which really starts to unlock the value for commercial UAS and therefore unlock the value for PrecisionHawk." Launching a Project Firms who want to start their own project with ASSURE should first contact Mississippi State, said Brooks, and then join the 100 or so other firms that are COE members. "Joining is simply a letter indicating an interest to join and then that gets you basically into the big inclusive circle to where you have access to some of the ongoing work that ASSURE is do- ing in terms of summaries of our current proj- ects," Brooks explained. "Obviously when we sit down with folks we usually sit down after they've joined to give them the full progress update on what ASSURE is doing. Twice a year we get to- gether with our corporate partners and basically provide updates on all the research that we're do- ing so they can see where there might be inter- sections with areas of interest for them." There is no fee to join, Brooks said. "What we basically do is just structure the relationship in advance." If a firm decides to launch a project, that kicks off a series of meetings, Brooks said. ASSURE determines the core areas of competency that would be needed to tackle the problem, calls the research universities that are best suited to do the work—building a team to make certain all aspects of the question are answered. Then the company and ASSURE define the scope and na- ture of the research problem, craft a work plan and come to a common agreement on a time- line, deliverables and budget before signing a contract. ASSURE also informs the company of any opportunities to plug into research already un- derway, identifying projects across the federal government as well as those within FAA. If op- portunities exist ASSURE can craft a white pa- per to get the process started. FAA reviews those project white papers in batches, Brooks said. If the timing of the pro- posal happens to be aligned with FAA's review schedule then the whole process, including the review, might take as little as 60 days. As of press time FAA had not set a closure date for reviewing the next batch of project ideas, Brooks said. "We're now working proposals for Round 2 work, both university-proposed and FA A- proposed," he said, "and we've just reached the point to where we're opening the door to be able to expand into industry-initiated research efforts—so this is the right time to get in." UAS RESEARCH UPDATE Photo courtesy of North Carolina University Two researchers from North Carolina University, an ASSURE core member, work on a PrecisionHawk aircraft.