What do you hope your aircraft will accomplish in real-world emergency response scenarios? What draws you and your team to emergency response innovation?

We hope this aircraft becomes a force multiplier for real-world emergency response, something that can put eyes, sensors, and supplies where human responders can’t safely go—and do so quickly. In practice, that means carrying critical equipment and payloads into hazardous areas, operating in smoke and low visibility, maintaining precise flight paths for drops or deliveries, and providing incident commanders with a clearer picture of what’s happening on the ground so they can make better, faster decisions. 

Our team is drawn to emergency response innovation because we’ve seen firsthand how much the right tools can change an outcome. Through the NIST Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) UAS First Responder Challenges, our group has designed and fielded drone systems for indoor and outdoor search-and-rescue scenarios, working directly with firefighters and law enforcement and earning multiple top awards in the process. Watching responders try our systems, giving blunt feedback, and then taking those lessons back into the lab has cemented our commitment to building technology that isn’t just impressive in a demo, but truly reliable when lives and communities are on the line.

Team Lead: Rachel Axten

Team Members:

Vitor Valente   

Aniruddha Perumalla   

Eric Johnson   

Maxwell Palamarchuk   

Ameya Adkar   

Ishan Haque   

Gianna Coniglio   

Chaitanya Patel   

Samay Shingatwar   

Aum Dave