KU News Release

National aeronautics association honors current KU student, recent graduate

LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas graduate student and a spring 2007 graduate from the aerospace engineering program have received top honors from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Aerospace engineering doctoral student Roelof Vos of the Netherlands and Nobuya Nishio, who earned a bachelor’s degree in May, were both lauded for their work.

Vos was honored with the 2007-08 Abe M. Zarem Award for Distinguished Achievement in Aeronautics. Vos received the award for his technical paper “Post-Buckled Precompressed Elements: A New Class of Control Actuators for Morphing Wing UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).” His research investigated new control mechanisms for “smart materials” that are capable of changing shape and in doing so affect the flight of the aircraft.

“Compared to conventionally controlled wing control surfaces, I managed to substantially decrease power, weight and part count, while maintaining excellent control capability,” Vos said.

The accolade isn’t the first for Vos’ project. He earned second prize in the AIAA Region 7 student competition in 2006 and Delft University of Technology’s Best Aerospace Master’s Thesis for 2004-05. Vos worked on the paper as a master’s student at Delft University under the guidance of Ron Barrett-Gonzalez, associate professor of aerospace engineering at KU.

A release from AIAA says the goals of the award are to recognize talented graduate students and motivate more students to seek advanced degrees. Vos will receive a travel stipend to present his work at the biennial International Conference of the Aeronautical Sciences. His work also will be submitted for publication in the professional media for aeronautics and astronautics. The award also acknowledges the involvement of Barrett-Gonzalez as Vos’ faculty adviser.

Nishio won first place in the Undergraduate Individual Aircraft Design Competition. This year’s contest asked students to work on a design for a class of aircraft known as Sport Pilot/Light Sport Aircraft.

Each year, AIAA issues specific requests for proposals to students at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Different requests are available for students to work as individuals or in teams of three to 10 people. The students must devise the best design to fit the request in a given time period as they follow a rigorous set of design requirements and objectives. The final report from students must include not only the design itself but also the organization and management of the project. Topics change every year to address current and future directions in aerospace fields.

KU aerospace engineering undergraduate students won first place in this AIAA category in 2000 and 1997.

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