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Drone Researcher Giuseppe Loianno Honored
The National American Italian Foundation (NAIF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation, promotion and protection of Italian-American heritage and culture. NAIF presents their Young Investigator awards its Young Investigator Award every year to researchers and academics who excel at their field and come up with innovative, practical solutions to common problems. In New York, NAIF presented their Young Investigator award of 2018 to an Assistant Professr, Giuseppe Loianno.
The head of NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Agile Robotics and Perception Lab was awarded the title of the Young investigator by NAIF due to his presentation on drone applications for health programs, titled, “Drones for Health: Agricultural and Infrastructure Monitoring.” The presentation was delivered at a conference on technology for the advancement of human health and eco-health.
Giuseppe Lionanno’s work on inspection with drones:
The assistant professor is working on much smaller autonomous drones with the application of Artificial Intelligence integrated with classic robotics that are used for the inspection and monitoring of infrastructure; which is a hot topic of research currently as more and more UAVs are used for the purpose of inspection of disaster sites. One such project of his along the same lines involves investigation and inspection of the Fukushima power plant in Japan, sponsored by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
“By the same token, they are being deployed in the agricultural sector,” Loianno said. “Farmers can, for example, efficiently see which crops need irrigation or pest control, and drones can also convey information about which crops are ripe enough to harvest. Many people base their image of farming on old movies or books and think of it in picturesque terms, but in reality, farmers have become savvy users of technology.”
In September, Loianno was appointed as a researcher in NYU Tandon’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
Commenting on his appointment, the Dean at NYU Tandon said, “We are pleased that Giuseppe Loianno has joined our faculty and feel confident that he will contribute to making NYU Tandon a hub of exciting research on autonomous robotics.”
Agricultural applications of drones:
In his presentation at the conference for which he earned the award as a Young investigator, he pointed to expanding the potential of drones in investigating disaster sites, “By the same token, they are being deployed in the agricultural sector … Farmers can, for example, efficiently see which crops need irrigation or pest control, and drones can also convey information about which crops are ripe enough to harvest. Many people base their image of farming on old movies or books and think of it in picturesque terms, but in reality, farmers have become savvy users of technology.”
