Research & Projects

The Surveillance for Intelligent Emergency Response Robotic Aircraft (SIERRA) project was initiated to unite academia and emergency response units for assessment of the viability of UAVs for enhanced situational awareness. The goals of SIERRA, focusing on forest fire applications, are not only to have an eye in the sky but additionally to circumvent loss of life and limit property damage by utilizing a low cost, easily deployable UAV system. The main concept is that real-time data gathered coupled with an accurate predictive capability and rapid dissemination of processed information to the incident commander makes a very meaningful difference in disaster/emergency response. With the real-time monitoring capabilities and the capabilities of onboard sensors, firefighters can have situational awareness of the real fire and its progression on any level of the Incident Command Structure.

Suave is a UAV that has been tasked with navigating a GPS denied environment that is cluttered with obstacles. The goal of this project is to identify and geo-locate a specified target.