Sebastian Scherer (CS 2004, 2007, 2010)

Systems Scientist, Robotics Institute
Courtesy Appointment, Mechanical Engineering

Bio

Sebastian Scherer is a Systems Scientist at the Robotics Institute (RI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). His research focuses on enabling unmanned rotorcraft to operate at low altitude in cluttered environments. He has been pushing of what is possible for unmanned rotorcraft and at the same time, have been pushing the state of the art in algorithm development. We have shown the fastest and most tested obstacle avoidance on an Yamaha RMax (2006), the first obstacle avoidance for micro aerial vehicles in natural environments (2008), and the first automatic landing zone detection and landing on a full-size helicopter (2010). Dr. Scherer received his B.S. in Computer Science, M.S. and Ph.D. in Robotics from CMU in 2004, 2007, and 2010. He is a Siebel scholar and a recipient of the AIAA@Infotech Best Paper Runner-up Award (2010). His self-landing helicopter work has received the Popular Science Best of What's New 2010 Award.

Education

• B.S. Computer Science (Minor Robotics), Carnegie Mellon University, 2004
• M.S. Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, 2007
• Ph.D. Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, 2010

Research

Scherer's research focuses on enabling unmanned rotorcraft to operate at low altitude in cluttered environments. He has developed a number of autonomous rotorcraft to enable fast inspection for challenging infrastructure such as powerlines, poles, wind turbines, tanks and inside and outside power plants.