Meet the Teams: Aggie First Response of North Carolina A&T State University

GoAERO Team Aggie First Response’s Amilia Schimmel and Luis Landivar grew up near the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and often heard stories of hikers losing their lives due to natural disasters such as flooding, forest fires, landslides, or falls. In fact, one of their classmates lost their life from a fall in the mountains due to the time it took to reach them and get them to a hospital.

“These events had a lasting impact on us,” relates Luis. “It motivated our interest at the time in aviation and emergency rescue. We became determined to find ways to improve emergency response time and help save lives.”

Similarly, Aggie First Response’s Abhijit Shinde was inspired to seek out ways to improve emergency response by a devastating flood in his hometown in India in 2019 that affected nearly three million people. He was a part of a team that gathered relief materials, but “couldn’t deliver them due to flooded roads and bridges, and the absence of nearby airlifting facilities. Even the National Disaster Response Force and Air Force faced limitations. So, it took over 15 days for the relief materials to reach those in need,” he recounts.  

Moved by these personal experiences with disaster response challenges, Amilia, Luis, and Abhijit have joined together to form Aggie First Response, a team-based university team at North Carolina A&T State University that is participating in GoAERO, the global challenge to develop an entirely new class of emergency vehicles – flyers that can respond more effectively and efficiently than helicopters, drones and ambulances in times of natural and man-made disasters, extreme weather catastrophes, and medical emergencies.  

The Aggie First Response team, which also includes Maria Olmos and Ansumana Fofana and is advised by Dr. Zhijian Xie, an associate professor in the College of Engineering, is focused on designing unmanned autonomous vehicles that can support search and rescue operations and assist in transporting individuals to nearby hospitals.  

When asked about their solution, Amilia exclaims, “when there are hurricanes, tornadoes, or wildfires and the roads are blown out or flooded, we want our flyer to be able to go in, detect where people are in need of assistance, relay their locations to first responders and if injured people are inaccessible by on-the-ground vehicles, by foot, or by horseback, our flyer would be able to pick them up and get them out.”

Such a clear vision for their flyer has already been rewarded: the team is one of 14 awardees receiving funds from GoAERO with support from NASA’s University Innovation project.

Aggie First Response is developing a multi-faceted autonomous fixed-wing vehicle that can take off and land vertically in any location, hover over areas of interest and quickly cruise long distances efficiently. This capability is crucial for assisting first responders in challenging environments such as forested areas, flood zones, and wildfire regions. In these scenarios, civilians often have limited mobility and require airlift evacuation to nearby safe zones. First responders will be able to control the flyer so it can hover and lower down cabling for civilians to be airlifted and carried to safety.  

The team's design includes several innovative features. The flyer will be heat resistant to account for the extremely high temperatures of wildfires. Further, it will counteract cybersecurity threats, such as GPS spoofing and radio signal encryption, to prevent hacks that could greatly impact the flyer's functions and objectives. 

The team began working on such a search and rescue flyer five years ago, Luis explains. One of the first ideas incorporated into the vehicle was thermal color imaging to identify and distinguish humans from animals on the ground, gathering information that would then be relayed to first responders.  

“It went so well that the first responders we were working with began asking for other components, including night vision and full-color thermal imaging,” he says, noting that the overwhelmingly positive response served as a real motivation and inspiration.

Their passion was further heightened when the team participated in its first major competition—the NIST UAS Search and Rescue Triple Challenge. “We won 3rd place nationally competing against other universities and companies in creating an autonomous UAS capable of detecting individuals in thermal and broadcasting their location back to the ground station,” Luis says. “After attempting and seeing the practical solutions that we could develop, we saw the good that could come if we continued to develop solutions for search and rescue operations.”

Other competitions followed, which “gave us a solid foundation for what our goals and moral code should be, that is saving lives through search and rescue,” says Amilia, adding that the First Responders with whom they have been interacting “love our concept” of being able to take off without a runway, fly long distances, patrol large areas quickly, and relay information back quickly and efficiently.

Their competitive experience and each member’s area of specialization have proven valuable as they progress through the GoAERO challenge. 

• Luis, a Ph.D. student, has specialization in UAS autonomous systems, systems design, composites manufacturing, CAD modeling, and aircraft design.

• Amilia, who holds a Master of Science degree, specializes in managing budgets and administrative tasks for projects, CAD modeling, and UAS implementation safety coordination.

• Abhijit, also a Ph.D. student, has experience in UAS testing and implementation, DC power systems, antenna design and machine learning algorithms.

• Maria and Ansumana are currently studying mechanical and electrical engineering.

• Dr. Xie, the team's advisor, has a background in radio frequency integrated circuits, intelligent circuit design methodology, electrostatic discharge protection, and novel device modeling and has extensive experience mentoring students and guiding projects.

  
  

Because of this expertise, Luis says that rather than using the GoAERO-NASA funds to purchase software and hardware, among other components to build their prototype and Final Fly-Off vehicle, “we’d rather build everything from scratch. If you could save a person for a dollar, you would. It shouldn’t have to cost $10,000 and even lots more, when we can spend a quarter of that for our flyer.”

The many competitions in which they have participated, including the NASA University student research challenge, and the NIST UAS Search and rescue competitions 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0, have provided team members with one intangible benefit as they continue improving upon their design and problem-solving skills.

“We’ve spent so many days together,” Abhijit relates. “It’s given us a real understanding and appreciation for each other and our own perspectives. And it’s brought us to this point, knowing we work really well together.”

Still, there are challenges. “Our current issue is time,” Luis explains. “Although we do have experience in quad-plane design and have made smaller-scale quad-plane vehicles, manufacturing a full-scale version will take time. Our plan to overcome it includes reaching out to industry leaders for guidance, conducting more research on large scale aircraft, and seeking guidance from GoAERO’s mentors, all in regard to the best practices to use and what to look out for.”

The team has found GoAERO’s expert lectures particularly valuable in refining their approach. One notable example was Michael Duffy's presentation on energy and powerplant approaches, which detailed specific transport energy demands and the types of fuel that can be used, specifically energy versus peak power. “This caught our attention because the majority of our previous vehicles used Li-ion batteries, so this caused us to open up research into gas engines as an alternative for future use, if necessary.”

Looking beyond the Final Fly-Off, participating in GoAERO has enabled Aggie First Response to realize that the goals of the competition align perfectly with its goals of one day starting a company that creates autonomous aircraft capable of assisting in first response in many scenarios. 

“What we gain from the GoAERO competition is, it will help us in testing and refining our skills to make our company a reality,” Luis says.  

One constant between GoAERO and their prospective company will be the team’s secret weapon, one perhaps rooted in Amilia’s love of animals and her background in veterinary services.  

“We have a team mascot,” she exclaims. “After working on these projects for years, one of our teammates adopted a dog, and named her Nasa. She’s a mini-Australian Shepherd named after a NASA ULI grant we previously worked on for autonomous quad-plane vehicle research in urban air mobility. She brings us joy and energy.”