New USDA NIFA grant to develop autonomous UAVs

Prof. Nghiem was part of a team who received a new research grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) to develop a UAV platform for autonomous navigation in GPS-denied and communication-limited forest environments. The project will involve hardware, methods, algorithms, and software developments. Our lab will lead the development of novel perception, control, planning, and machine learning/AI methods for the autonomous UAV platform. This grant is a collaboration with Prof. Alexander Shenkin at Northern Arizona University. The project is expected to last two years, with one year at UCF. The total award is USD 300K, with about USD 100K for Prof. Nghiem’s team.

We are very thankful for the support from the USDA NIFA.