U of I professor launches national drone design program for engineering undergrads

A University of Idaho professor is recruiting top engineering undergraduates from throughout the country for a new 10-week summer program, challenging participants to design and build autonomous unmanned vehicles including drone aircraft, watercraft and land rovers.

Participants will develop technological skills such as using automatic-control, sensors, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to solve real-world problems. The summer program advances state and federal efforts to promote AI literacy and skills development to ensure the workforce is equipped to adapt to the evolving nature of work that AI and rapidly evolving technology will bring.

A $454,000 National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) grant is funding the drone-education program, which will be hosted at the U of I Boise’s Idaho Water Center during the next three summers.

“Learning to design and program autonomous systems for air, land and water is the ultimate preparation for the future workforce,” said Jae Ryu, a professor in the Department of Soil and Water Systems, who is leading the program. “Students who master this multi-domain autonomy — from unmanned aerial vehicles to unmanned surface vehicles — gain the integrated STEM and AI skills essential for high-growth careers in logistics, smart infrastructure and environmental monitoring, ensuring they are not just ready, but essential, for the jobs of tomorrow.”

The commercial drone industry is primed for rapid growth. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of drone operators will increase by more than 31% in the next decade, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates there are already more than 400,000 commercial drone pilots in the U.S., with more than 855,000 drones registered with the FAA.

“Drone education is needed,” Ryu said. “Not many people know how to fly drones safely and legally in national airspace.”

Ten students will be accepted into the summer program, each of whom will receive a $7,000 stipend, plus an allowance for expenses. The first two weeks of the program will involve virtual learning, followed by eight weeks of in-person, hands-on training in Boise. Applications will be taken through Feb. 28, 2026.

Working in teams, they’ll choose to build either an aerial drone, a watercraft or a land rover, and they’ll design their drone to complete a task such as recording imagery, collecting water samples or spraying weeds. Teams will initially build their drones to be remote-control operated, before they incorporate artificial intelligence coding enabling their drones to operate autonomously.

“They are going to develop a prototype and deploy that platform to collect data and spend time doing some data analysis, and eventually they are going to publish a journal article based on that data,” Ryu said.