The United States Federal budget for 2010 allocates $533.7 billion to the department of defense, and some of that money has made its way to the university of Hartford. It was recently announced that the Hartford’s college of engineering technology and architecture received a major grant from the federal government.

The college of engineering technology and architecture, or CETA has received $2.4 million in order to develop new technology for the military, this is the first major grant the university has received

Thre grant came about because of work that CETA has been doing with the military over the past few years. The government reached out the the University when they were looking for education institutes for partners.

Dr. Manzione is just one of the many faculty that will be involved with research for the government. CETA has put together a team of professors and outside companies and universities that will all develop together with University of Hartford students.

Manzione says, “Departments that are probably most involved are mechanical, electrical, computer science, computer engineering. The structural integrity of this is something even a civil engineering student can appreciate.”

CETA will develop a new form of UAV. These are basically remote controlled flying surveillance cameras. These new UAV’s are predicted to be the size of a soda can.

“It’s a great opportunity for our students to realize a leading edge project, in an area that’s very important to the US, these sort of unmanned vehicles that will keep the soldiers out of harms way”, says Dr. Manzione

Although, only CETA will be involved with development, Manzione says that this is something the University will benefit from as a whole.

“It moves us to another category, it helps us to build reputation and distinction, I think it gets us recognized that we’re playing at a higher league right now.”