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ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING & COMPUTER SCIENCE
TRANSFORMING ROBOTICS WITH SMART RESEARCH
energy and provide security and speed to the group. Research aims to model this behavior and quantify energy savings in hopes of promoting similar movement patterns and ideas in robotics. X Cricket Communication: A species of cricket changed the way it communicates to avoid a parasite that followed its communication pattern. This could potentially be applied to communication security in computer networks with malicious listeners.
he received the SMART offer, he was “overjoyed, because it takes a lot of
pressure off my shoulders.” Hand, who originally came to
Embry-Riddle for his M.S. in Uncrewed and Autonomous Systems Engineering, says that experience sold him on pursuing his doctorate. “I fell in love with the work being done here,” Hand said. Hand is studying insect behaviors to tie those behaviors into practical applications for drones and robotics. His research areas include: X Eusocial Insect Multi-Agent Fault Resilience: How can the ways ants, termites, bees and wasps resist parasites be used to improve the strategies that drones, robots and other systems use to resist malicious control? X Millipede Movement: Millipedes conduct swarm behaviors to save
Between 2009 and 2023, Embry‑Riddle students were awarded a total of 46 U.S. Department of Defense SMART Scholar awards. This year alone, they earned 12 full-ride scholarships, which include full tuition for up to five years,
mentorship, summer internships, a stipend and guaranteed post- graduation employment.
James Hand (’26), in the second year of his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, said that when
Buzzing with Innovation Hand’s research on eusocial insect behavior won first place in graduate student research at Embry-Riddle’s Student Research Symposium in 2023.
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