Guardian

Guardian won Significant Social Impact, a $4,500 award at the 2017 5th Annual DifferenceMaker $50K Idea Challenge. Team members include Julie Pham (Senior, Business), Yomar Salazar (Senior, Business), Austin Stevens (Junior, Electrical Engineering), and Kyle Stuart (Senior, Electrical Engineering).

Guardian is a sensor platform that can attach to any commercially available drone for use in search and rescue operations. Guardian hopes to improve the current search and rescue operations, which are currently timely and expensive. Guardian will do this by equipping drones, which are currently used in such operations, with thermal and high-definition cameras, as well as the appropriate, all-inclusive software which can capture the variety of systems that are currently on the market. Because the Guardian system is a sensor with high-definition and infrared cameras, as well as GPS, the drones are able to help people more quickly, which means saving lives.