UC Merced School of Engineering

Drones and drone research deliver exciting STEM educational opportunities in precision agriculture and many other industries as student researchers think about ways to raise productivity and benefit society.

The Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab is earning UC Merced national recognition, and the campus’s expertise prompted the UC system to establish its Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Safety — which determines systemwide policies for drone use and serves as an information resource — at UC Merced. Unmanned aerial systems, or drones, have significant appeal as remote sensing and actuation platforms for many civilian and commercial applications, from precision agriculture and using aerial mapping to explore and preserve historic sites to remote leak

sensing in the atmosphere and in the underground world of natural gas pipelines. The MESA Lab is in high demand from students, in part because its lead faculty member, Professor YangQuan Chen, is a pioneer in drone research. MESA students have won the Berkeley Big Ideas contest and prestigious fellowships, presented at conferences worldwide, and collaborated with some of the world’s largest research agencies, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory .

AIRBORNE ENGINEERING

- Professor YangQuan Chen, Director of the MESA

Lab