 Army scientists and engineers are seeking future partnerships with small businesses in an effort to find innovative technology solutions for the future. A group of 12 mechanical and aerospace engineers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory toured two aviation companies run by two brothers in the Philadelphia area, October 13, 2016. These are complex systems that you have to build test infrastructure to support and to test early and hopefully our proximity to Army Research Lab, they can take advantage of our large experience in this field. Michael Piasecki, president of DPI UAV Systems, develops small rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles for military and commercial customers. Piasecki's path to aviation research and development may have been destiny. In 1936, his father, aviation pioneer Frank Piasecki and a group of engineering students from the University of Pennsylvania designed and built their own helicopter. By the 1950s, he had formed the Piasecki Aircraft Corporation. I am a product of my father who was a very passionate inventor and responsible for many aircraft. He gave me this passion, a love of flight. But more importantly, a love for solving engineering problems. On the same compound near the Philadelphia International Airport, Michael's brother John Piasecki, president and chief executive officer of the present day Piasecki Aircraft Corporation showcased what his company is doing, which among other things includes work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Piasecki is building a prototype for DARPA. The Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System, or ARIES, is a vertical takeoff and landing flight module designed to operate as an unmanned platform, capable of transporting a variety of payloads according to DARPA's website. John Piasecki sees a future where UAVs play a big role in moving payloads for both military and commercial applications. I think that the same capabilities that are being looked for by Amazon and Google in terms of logistics, on-demand logistics capability using small UAVs, while the scale might be a little bit larger for the military, is really a very similar approach. ARL's Open Campus Initiative guides Army researchers toward a new business model for building an integrated work environment with academia, industry and government, thus fueling innovation through research and development collaboration according to ARL officials. As part of both Open Campus Initiative and our own research efforts, we do want to collaborate with small companies where they bring in a lot of innovations and a lot of drive to innovate, but they may not have access to all the expensive facilities or capabilities. We have identified quite a few opportunities and their response has been very positive. They do want to collaborate with us in several areas. Small business has a tremendous amount to offer the Defense Department and particularly in getting innovative ideas and demonstrating them in an affordable and timely fashion. Official said ARL's vision is to be the premier advocacy organization committed to maximizing small business opportunities. For ARL TV, I'm David McNally.