Michael Sanders

Mike leads the LSUASC’s effort to Lone Star UAS Center of Excellence and Innovation (LSUASC) efforts to advance the integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Autonomous Aviation (AAV) technologies across educational, public, and commercial agency interests; seamlessly integrating AAV systems supporting Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) concepts; and supporting evaluations and demonstrations supporting the FAA’s NextGeneration (NextGen) office.  This includes assisting State and Federal Public Safety agencies UAS and AAV capabilities. 

From 2014 to 2019, LSUASC participated in NASA’s UAS Traffic Management (UTM) developmental efforts, culminating in August 2019, supporting the most complex small UTM in an urban environment, including 216 live and 644 simulated flights, 233 separate test events, and generated over 9 million descrete data elements. 

Since April 2020, Mike has led LSUASC’s efforts to support at least four separate FAA NextGen office evaluations and demonstrations supporting implementation concepts for AAM, including Urban Air Mobility concepts, as well as the Info-Centric National Airpsace System operational concepts.  This includes the extensible Traffic Management (xTM).  xTM describes a future environment where cooperative air traffic services enable the integration of crewed and unscrewed aircraft.    

Prior to joining the staff at TAMUCC, Mike served as an Infantry Officer in the US Army for 30 years in a variety of Command and leadership positions.  His assignments included several combat deployments to include leading the Counter-IED effort in Afghanistan in 2011.  Throughout his Army career, Mike was an early adopter of transformational technology both as an experimentation lead for the Army’s Objective Force Task Force and while serving as Deputy Director for both the Army and Defense Modeling and Simulation Offices.  After retiring from the Army, Mike spent almost five years in the private sector, and was the Deputy Project Manager on a $5M Air Force modeling and simulation support services contract.

Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in History, and Master of Science degrees in Administration, Industrial Engineering (Interactive Simulation and Training Systems), and Strategic Studies.