Social Justice and Civic Engagement

This project was conducted in collaboration with the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and sought to increase faltering participation in social justice and civic engagement programs. A survey of 180 respondents was analyzed to get student opinions, and four interviews were conducted among prominent offices of diversity. We found that students want more programs involving discussion, and cultural awareness workshops. A key component to successful diversity programs at other campuses is student organizations participating in event planning and advertisement

Coordinated Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The objective of this project is to design and implement coordinated estimation and control algorithms for a pair of quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These algorithms enable one of the UAVs to observe and reduce navigational uncertainty for the other UAV, which carries a relatively small number of sensors. The sensors installed include a LiDAR depth sensor and a camera. The commercially available 3DR Solo UAV is used as a platform. For each UAV, this platform is modified by attaching a Raspberry Pi embedded flight controller. A socket server is designed to enable communication between UAVs. The LQR and EKF tools from control theory are used to design the desired algorithms. The system is demonstrated via a flight test involving the two UAVs following a straight line trajectory