Michael Sanders

Mike Sanders leads the Autonomy Research Institute (ARI) 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 Next Generation (NextGen) office. This includes assisting State and Federal Public Safety agencies UAS and AAV capabilities. 

From 2014 to 2019, the organization now known as ARI 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 discrete data elements. 

Since April 2020, Mike led ARI’s efforts to support six separate FAA NextGen office evaluations and demonstrations implementation concepts for AAM, including Urban Air Mobility. Mike also serves as the Vice Chair of the Texas Department of Transportation AAM Committee, which is charged with developing recommendations for implementing AAM within the state for the Texas Legislature.    

Prior to joining the staff at TAMU-CC, 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 coordinating 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 Department of Defense modeling and simulation offices.

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.