Mountain Minds Monday: Self-Flying Drones

Tahoe Silicon Mountain, a network of entrepreneurs and professionals who live and work in the Tahoe-Truckee area, is pleased to welcome Dr. Christos Papachristos to present at Mountain Minds Monday: “Self-Flying Drones: On a Mission to Navigate Dark, Dangerous and Unknown Worlds”

Even with all our current technical advances, dangerous and unpleasant jobs are still a part of modern life. Imagine a world where flying robots could be used to navigate in any environment, under any possible conditions, and complete risky tasks that humans currently perform.

Dr. Christos Papachristos, Post-Doc Researcher at the Autonomous Robots Lab at University of Nevada, Reno, will be speaking about how, without the benefit of GPS or previously mapped environments, drones can be used in beyond line-of-sight operation to autonomously navigate, map and explore dark and dusty, partially sealed or underground, and generally visually-degraded environments like mines or nuclear waste sites.

Dr. Papachristos will discuss the use of regular cameras with flashers, inertial sensors, 3D-structure time-of-flight cameras combined with infrared cameras, ionizing radiation detectors, and the logic behind the algorithms that guide the drones on their missions. 

You can learn more about the Autonomous Robots Lab here: http://www.autonomousrobotslab.com/ 

Mountain Minds Monday will be on Monday, October 9th, 6-8 pm at Pizza on the Hill, in Tahoe Donner at 11509 Northwoods Blvd., Truckee. A $5 fee includes pizza and salad. Before and after the presentation, there will be time for networking.