Bruna Pearson is a PhD researcher at Durham University who has studied both artificial intelligence and computer vision. Currently working with robotics, she is fascinated with the potential to simulate human visual perception and understanding and is inspired to create an autonomous, intelligent drone system capable of operating in challenging search and rescue missions.

Bruna is also leveraging deep learning to simulate human perceptions of forest trails in an endeavor to help UAV identify trails and make autonomous decisions about the best flight strategy to be executed in real time. The applications of this project vary from search and rescue missions and assessments of forest structures and riverscapes to farming, where UAV are currently being used to facilitate crop monitoring and to spot bacterial or fungal infections on trees.