(L–R) Lt. Col. Joel Miller, Lt. Col. Nick Kioutas, President Sidney A. McPhee, and Lt. Col. Robb Walker chat after an Aug. 13, 2012, signing ceremony of a partnership agreement between the U.S. Army, Marines, and MTSU involving unmanned aerial vehicles.
Native Truths When the United South and Eastern Tribes wanted to learn the true cost of providing health care to the members of its 26 American Indian tribes in 12 states—and whether adequate resources were being allocated—they turned to MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center (BERC) to conduct the research. BERC studies in recent years have also been used to prove that Nashville’s health care industry contributes $30 billion to the local economy, that music festival Bonnaroo is a cash cow for middle Tennessee, and that a proposed $20 million northwest Tennessee slack-water port was worthy of federal funding.
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Eye in the Sky Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are in high demand for use in defense and homeland security, law enforcement, emergency management, and agriculture. In 2012, MTSU formed a historic educational partnership with the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps to study ways robots on the ground can be used in concert with unmanned vehicles in the air. The three-year cooperative effort with the Robotic Systems Joint Project Office, headquartered in Warren, Mich. with a satellite office at the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala., is the first of its kind. It comes one year after MTSU and the Army partnered to support educational and research efforts into the Army’s remotecontrolled Raven aircraft. In addition, MTSU and ISR Group of Savannah, Tenn., have developed an unmanned aerial system program unparalleled in the Southeast. The University is also assisting the Federal Aviation Administration in the study of UAV air traffic control to ensure safe integration of UAVs into the national airspace.