Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Over the years, technology has generated countless opportunities and resources which have shaped the way we live and interact with the world. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are undeniably among the most significant technological advances of the past few decades. A drone is essentially a flying robot that can be remotely controlled, or fly autonomously, to perform a given task. Drones are becoming crucial in countless civilian and military applications such as Intelligence, Security, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions, search and rescue operations, infrastructure inspection, package delivery, to name a few. This technology has huge potential in playing a major role in the world's future landscape, contributing to the creation of many businesses and jobs. The development of transportation drones (personal flying-cars and air-taxis), which might seem like a fictional idea at this point in time, will most likely become a reality in the next few decades. Despite the tremendous efforts of the research community and the steady progress in this field, there are still several technical and regulatory issues that need to be worked out to pave the path forward to fully autonomous UAVs. The most challenging technical hurdles to overcome are related to the development of reliable localization, perception, control and decision-making systems that are able to handle highly unpredictable and extreme situations (e.g., extreme weather conditions, unstructured environments, unexpected obstacles, sensing limitations, etc.). Once these problems worked out, the era of self-flying cars will be just around the corner. This research program aims at addressing several challenging open problems (considered as the Achilles heels in this field) related to the design of efficient and reliable localization, perception and control algorithms for advanced autonomous navigation systems. The applicant aims at establishing a world-class and cutting-edge research program on Autonomous Navigation Systems, towards the development of reliable fully autonomous UAVs.