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Under Emerging Tech, Digital Trends interviewed Craig Putnam, associate director of robotics engineering, about the student-led project that is developing the autonomous rover and payload-deploying drone. The goal is to find and safely destroy hidden munitions that kill or maim as many as 20,000 people around the world each year. Putnam told Digital Trends, “the goal was to come up with a system that was as low cost as reasonably possible so that it could be afforded by some remote village that has a problem with land mines in the area.”
BBC News profiled WPI landmine-related research in this segment. “I believe we’re probably the first that’s been doing the robot drone duo in the context of looking for landmines. Initially, it was just the aerial part then we worked on the rover. Now we’re trying to bring it all together,” Craig Putnam, associate director, robotics engineering, told the BBC. The student teams are developing the autonomous rover and payload-deploying drone to find and safely destroy hidden munitions that kill or maim as many as 20,000 people around the world each year.
Boston 25 news broadcasted a segment on WPI students, under the guidance of Craig Putnam, senior instructor, computer science, developing an autonomous rover and payload-deploying drone that work together to search for and detonate landmines.
The Robotics Business Review highlighted work by Major Qualifying Project (MQP) teams, ranging from an autonomous vehicle platform to a robot that can guide prospective students around a campus.
Popular Mechanics wrote about undergraduate students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute building an autonomous underwater robot that could help reduce the threat posed by an invasive species of fish.
Craig Putnam, senior instructor in computer science and associate director of the Robotics Engineering Program, was interviewed on WBUR radio about undergraduate students building an autonomous underwater robot that could help reduce the threat posed by an invasive species of fish.