Drones

UC Merced Drone Team Soars to New Heights in Global Competition

July 17, 2023

Members of the UC Merced team at the Design/Build/Fly drone competition in Tucson, Arizona.

After seven months of working for hours each weekend to design, build and fly a drone, it all came down to a nervous moment for UC Merced students taking part in a worldwide competition. Their drone had to be suspended between two poles and held together while weight was placed inside it....

Graduate student Di An uses drones to assess soil carbon.

UC Merced Invests in the Next Generation of Ag-Tech Leadership

The new UC Merced Farms Food Future innovation initiative is investing in 10 graduate researchers to solve climate and community challenges. Their work is the start of a concerted focus in climate-...

UC Merced researchers will use drones donated by SeekOps Inc. to gather data.

Drones Donated to UC Merced by Start-Up SeekOps Will Monitor Environmental Conditions

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipment donated by Texas-based start-up SeekOps Inc will support UC Merced's research efforts in environmental monitoring and conservation. The gift includes...

Students from Universidad Autónoma Chapingo in Texcoco, Mexico, visited UC Merced in March.

Campus Visit Broadens Mexican Research Collaborations

When three buses rolled onto campus on one chilly winter morning, UC Merced gave the occupants a warm Bobcat welcome. More than 100 undergraduate students and faculty members from Universidad...

Researchers Take New Approach to Quantify Water Use

Like many other researchers, environmental engineering professors Erin Hestir and Joshua Viers are trying to quantify water use in California’s Central Valley. The difference is, they are...

A drone, viewed from below, flies between tall buildings on a partly cloudy day.

CITRIS Researchers Lay Groundwork to Bring Flying Buses to California Skies

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has awarded a team of researchers from the University of California campuses at Merced, Berkeley and Davis a two-year grant to simulate urban...

Plan to Attend Innovate to Grow or Volunteer as a Judge

Now is the time to register to attend this year's Innovate to Grow (I2G) competition and see some of the 66 student engineering teams present their solutions to real-world engineering...

Peter Sou ('22) helps a student program a drone to fly a pattern at the Tri Valley Innovation Fair

UC Merced’s Mobile Maker Lab Brings Education to Community Fair

A team of UC Merced engineering students brought hands-on lessons on drones and robotics to hundreds of children and families at the recent Tri-Valley Innovation Fair. “Drones and robots are...

A machine developed in Professor Reza Ehsani's lab improves almond harvests by reducing the amount of dust stirred up as the nuts are gathered from the ground.

New AI Institute Expands UC Merced’s Smart, Sustainable Agriculture Effort

With a new $20 million federal grant, UC Merced becomes part of a multi-institutional research collaborative to develop artificial intelligence — or AI — solutions to tackle some of...

New Precision Ag Project Would Help Farmers Measure Plant Moisture

One of the biggest challenges in managing crops, especially in large fields, is knowing how much water each section of a field needs. Determining that accurately is a cumbersome process that requires...