Aurora’s Jay Gundlach Explores Unmanned Aircraft Systems Design in New Textbook

Author Jay Gundlach is no stranger to Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). He helped develop over 17 UAS at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and served as Vice President of Advanced Development for Insitu before joining Aurora Flight Sciences as Director of Conceptual Design.

Dr. Gundlach has now completed his first textbook, titled “Designing Unmanned Aircraft Systems: A Comprehensive Approach,” which explores all elements of UAS design, including architectural options and design drivers across diverse types of UAS systems. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. (AIAA), the book is part of the AIAA Educational Series.

The 805-page book is an authoritative single reference on UAS design and covers multiple design disciplines including launch and recovery systems, communications systems, remote sensing, payload integration, reliability, operations analysis, cost analysis, and product definition.

“We are very proud of Jay’s continuing contributions to UAV design and development,” said John Tylko, Aurora’s Vice President. Several Aurora products are featured in the textbook, including Skate, GoldenEye 80, Centaur and Orion.

“It was rewarding to create a single resource that encompasses the UAS conceptual design methods that I regularly use to develop new products,” said Gundlach. “I hope that readers will find this book useful for a variety of UAV related analyses and system design efforts.”

Gundlach earned his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech based on research in aircraft multidisciplinary design optimization. “Dr. Gundlach is particularly well qualified to write on this subject give his extensive experience in the field,” stated AIAA Editor-in-Chief Joseph A. Schetz.