The department faculty actively pursue research programs that address basic problems as well as applications in various fields of aerospace science and technology such as:

• Air Transportation & Aircraft Operations
• Applied Aerodynamics and Aero acoustics, including Aerodynamic Decelerators
• Atmospheric and Space Flight Mechanics
• Computational Fluid Dynamics and Electromagnetics
• Design and Optimization of Aerospace Systems, including LTA Systems
• Guidance, Dynamics and Control of Aerospace Vehicles
• Heat Transfer and Aerothermodynamics
• Structural Dynamics and Composite Materials
• Turbomachinery and Air breathing Propulsion
• Experimental Aerodynamics

Many of the research programs pursued in the department are funded by government agencies such as ARDB and DST, government organizations such as ISRO, DRDO, HAL, BARC and ADA, as well as private industry. While the research and development activities of the department continue to contribute to national aerospace programs, recent years have seen some of the faculty engage in collaborations with research groups at the University of Michigan, University of New South Wales, Georgia Tech, Caltech and RWTH, Aachen.

In any year, there are typically about 25 sponsored projects underway in the department, including 10 newly granted projects. The research and development activities of the department have contributed significantly to national aerospace programs. At the same time, faculty members also engage in fruitful international collaborations. For the year ending March 2005, faculty members of the department reported their research in around 50 journal and conference publications, many of which were co-authored by students. The department also encourages faculty and students to participate in national and international conferences and professional meetings.

Current funded research at the department addresses the specific areas of :

• Modeling and simulation of parafoil systems
• Flight dynamics and nonlinear control for high AoA flight
• Design and analysis of axial compressor blading and stall inception
• RCS computation for aerospace bodies
• Vorticity - acoustics interactions in thermoacoustics
• Design and optimization of aerostats and MAVs
• Neural control of spacecraft and airships
• Grid generation and parallelization of CFD solvers
• Structural response reduction using active control
• Mechanical performance of 3D woven composite structures
• Experimental investigation of active flow control