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UC WISE (“Wildfire Innovation through Science and Engineering”): We are a cross-disciplinary team consisting of faculty, undergraduate and graduate students from UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Berkeley. Our team's mission is to advance wildfire detection and mitigation through innovation in areas such as machine learning, computer vision, sensors, aircraft design, control and communication, ecology, etc. Please go here to learn more about the Xprize Competition: https://www.xprize.org/prizes/wildfire

Experimental methods, such as wind-tunnel experiments, play a crucial role in investigating the underlying physics of airflow around wing and fuselage. They validate flow control technologies, provide data for numerical method validation, and aid in the development of design tools.

A wide range of aircraft operate in dynamic environments characterized by unsteady flow. This unsteadiness arises from both temporal variations in the air environment and maneuvers employed by agile platforms navigating dense landscapes. These platforms include helicopters, VTOL, UAVs, and UAM, which differ from conventional aircraft in terms of smaller scaled airframes, lower flight speeds, and increased maneuverability. These air vehicles face significant and unpredictable flow disturbances that greatly influence their performance and stability.

Aircraft are a crucial part of a modern, connected world, but they take a heavy toll on the environment. Even short flights can release hundreds of kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere and create a massive amount of noise wherever they fly. Camli Badrya, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, is looking to aerodynamics to help make all types of flying more efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly.