Sanghamitra is a Masters student in the Electrical and Computer Science Engineering department. Her research areas include computer vision, perception, and robot learning for autonomous systems. Before coming to UW, she was working on embedded systems, computer vision, and deep learning for robotic applications, and is currently working on the beyond-visual-line-of-sight project for wilderness search and rescue operations at CTRL. Apart from coding, researching, and experimenting, you would see her trying different sports and doing yoga.
Publications
Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle for Search and Locate Operations
Madewell, E.,
Pollack, E.,
Kuni, H.,
Johri, S.,
Broyles, D.,
Vagners, J.,
and Leung, K.
The deployment of Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in wilderness search and locate operations has gained attention in the past few years. To help expand the effective search radius and provide more flexible UAV search capabilities, we propose a Reliable Uninterrupted Communications Kit for UAV Search (RUCKUS), a backpackable Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight UAV system utilizing an intermediate "relay UAV" to provide an uninterrupted communications link between the ground station and the search UAV. The proposed system is designed to be self-contained, modular, and affordable and can provide continuous sensor data and control flow between the search UAV and ground station, enabling the users to receive real-time video feedback from the search UAV and dynamically update the UAV’s search strategy. In this paper, we describe the proposed system architecture and characterization of the signal strength via a number of experimental flight tests. The end goal is to develop a flexible, cost-effective, and portable BVLOS solution to aid first responders and alike in safety-critical operations where extending the operational range can significantly improve mission success.