Highschool sophomore Abigail Merchant has made it her mission to make use of know-how to scale back flood-related deaths. The 15-year-old lives in Orlando, Fla., a state the place flooding is frequent partly due to its low elevation.
The altering local weather is growing the danger. Hotter air holds extra water, resulting in heavier-than-usual rainfall and extra flooding, in accordance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Abigail Service provider
Faculty
Orlando Science Center Excessive Constitution, in Florida
Grade
Sophomore
Hobbies
Basketball and enjoying the drums
At the moment satellites, synthetic aperture radar, and GPS are used to gather information on flood injury, monitor the situation of victims, and talk with emergency responders. However know-how failures and gradual data transmission speeds result in delays in response time, Service provider says. The rise in international flooding has intensified the necessity for extra correct and dependable strategies.
Final 12 months Service provider constructed what she says is a simpler option to monitor and gather information throughout floods: a small, cheap, standardized CubeSat built-in with artificial intelligence. The little satellites use a multiple of 10- by 10- by 10-centimeter units—which permits producers to develop their batteries, solar panels, computer systems, and different components as off-the-shelf parts.
The CubeSat takes photographs of an space and makes use of pattern recognition to detect flooding, assess infrastructure injury, and monitor survivors.
Service provider introduced her paper on the machine at this 12 months’s IEEE Region 3 annual convention, IEEE SoutheastCon.
“IEEE is a foundational a part of my progress as a younger researcher,” she says. “It turned engineering from my dream to actuality.”
Constructing a CubeSat at MIT
Service provider says her curiosity in disaster response was sparked after studying that it will possibly take a number of hours for emergency staff to obtain satellite tv for pc information.
Decided to discover a quicker methodology, she started researching applied sciences and found what CubeSats can do.
“CubeSats are very agile, scalable, and able to forming constellations (multiple-satellite teams) that replace information in almost actual time,” she says. “The concept these small satellites—which match into the palm of your hand—may ship life-saving insights quicker than conventional methods actually impressed me to push the idea additional.”
Final 12 months Service provider and three of her classmates had been accepted into MIT’s Beaver Works Build a CubeSat Challenge, the place groups of as much as 5 U.S. highschool college students got eight months to develop a satellite tv for pc able to finishing a space-based analysis mission.
Service provider’s workforce—the Satellite Sentinels—constructed a CubeSat powered by a convolutional neural community (CNN) that may determine closely impacted flood zones and remotely gather information for disaster relief and environmental monitoring. CNNs analyze picture information for sample recognition.
Service provider was the group’s payload programmer and led the mission’s design and simulation efforts, which included planning, configuring {hardware}, and creating autonomous software program and algorithms to handle the payload.
The workforce started by making a 3D mannequin of the machine to visualise and refine the location of its components. The know-how used—together with a Raspberry Pi, a number of sensors, and a digicam—was housed in a transparent plastic dice.
The center CubeSat was developed by Service provider and her workforce through the MIT Beaver Works Construct a CubeSat Problem. On the left is a industrial 1U CubeSat whereas on the best is a prototype of Service provider’s present design. Abigail Service provider
The machine, which price US $310 to construct, weighs about 495 grams and was remotely related to a laptop computer by way of Bluetooth throughout ground-based testing. The pc accommodates a machine learning algorithm—written by Service provider utilizing Python—that analyzes collected photographs to detect flooding.
The CubeSat takes a high-definition picture of its environment each 2 minutes and transmits it to the laptop computer. The satellite tv for pc transfers as much as 1,500 photographs each day and shops them on a 16-gigabyte SD card.
The algorithm then analyzes patterns, together with adjustments within the water’s colour and the picture’s pixel density. When the algorithm detects flooding, the machine can alert emergency responders.
“Whereas many current methods function on multihour cycles, the CubeSat captures high-resolution photographs each 2 minutes,” Service provider says. “The system can then set off alerts which can be delivered to first responders by way of SMS or e-mail.”
To check their system, Service provider and her workforce constructed a metropolis mannequin manufactured from Lego blocks in an empty bathtub. They positioned the CubeSat over it, and it took photographs of the scene. They then added water and filth to make it look extra like an actual flood. The CubeSat efficiently transferred the photographs to the laptop computer, and the algorithm detected the flooding.
Out of 30 groups, the Satellite tv for pc Sentinels positioned third.
Persevering with her work at Accenture
Service provider is continuous her analysis on flood-prevention applied sciences at Accenture in Richmond, Va., the place she works remotely as a payload proprietor and designer for the corporate’s CubeSat launch workforce.
After the MIT program ended, Service provider determined to scale her undertaking. She reached out to her former mentor Chris Hudson, the worldwide technical lead in house cybersecurity at Accenture. He provided her an internship.
Service provider is working to make the transition from prototype to practical product however, she says, wants to beat obstacles she encountered along with her MIT undertaking.
The principle one was that the mannequin struggled to detect flooding in variable situations. It’s as a result of the CNN mannequin wants context, she says. With out it, the mannequin can misread advanced visible cues. To repair the difficulty, Service provider skilled the algorithm to identify flooding by figuring out colours in particular person pixels.
Transmitting photographs utilizing Bluetooth labored in her toilet, nevertheless it isn’t fairly as helpful when CubeSats are orbiting 700 kilometers above the bottom.
“In case you’ve used a Bluetooth headset earlier than, you already know it disconnects the second you stroll away from the machine it’s related to,” she says. “That isn’t going to work when the CubeSat constellation is in orbit.”
She prompt the Accenture workforce swap to SubMiniature Model A (SMA) antennas. The RF antennas connect with the CubeSats utilizing an SMA connector.
“The event course of has been one of the formative experiences of my profession up to now,” Service provider says. “Working by the payload design and validation and assembly with these groups has given me a lot expertise, particularly for my age.”
Her payload is predicted to be launched early subsequent 12 months.
An aerospace internship at MIT
Service provider is an intern on the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the varsity’s largest interdisciplinary lab, with 60 analysis teams. CSAIL is led by IEEE Fellow Daniela Rus, recipient of the 2025 IEEE Edison Medal.
The internship is distant, and Service provider conducts analysis in a laboratory on the University of Central Florida, in Orlando.
“IEEE is a foundational a part of my progress as a younger researcher. It turned engineering from a dream to actuality.”
In that position, Service provider is specializing in cognitive cartography, a way for structuring advanced info into semantic maps that reveal how concepts and ideas relate to at least one one other. She makes use of embedding models, a sort of machine studying that converts info into numerical representations. The embeddings permit computer systems to acknowledge similarities and relationships between ideas, even when they’re described in numerous methods. The strategy helps an AI product perceive how concepts join, quite than treating every bit of knowledge as remoted.
“Being one of many youngest individuals within the lab is daunting,” Service provider says. “Nonetheless, I’m actually excited to be taught from engineers and researchers who’re working on the slicing fringe of the sphere.”
She says she is hoping to attend MIT or Stanford.
The way forward for IEEE
Service provider was launched to IEEE by Joe Jusai, former finance chair of the IEEE Orlando Section.
Her first private expertise with the group occurred in 2023 whereas she was conducting analysis for a science honest undertaking. She was engaged on a robotic arm that would decide up objects utilizing an electroencephalogram and Bluetooth. The undertaking was impressed by her grandmother, who suffers from mobility points and was wheelchair-bound.
“I saved seeing IEEE talked about in each regulation and customary I discovered,” Service provider says. When she realized about an upcoming Orlando Part assembly, she requested her mom to take her.
On the assembly, a number of members introduced their analysis. Service provider requested Masood Ejaz and Varadraj Gurupur—the chapter chair and cochair—if she may focus on her science honest undertaking.
“After presenting my work, IEEE shortly grew to become a neighborhood that has formed my understanding of what engineering can accomplish,” she says.
She felt on high of the world, she says, when she introduced her paper about her CubeSat undertaking at IEEE SouthEastCon.
“It’s a type of experiences that actually adjustments you,” she says.
She is happy to grow to be an IEEE pupil member when she begins faculty, she says. She additionally has her sights set on being elected as its president sometime.
“I met Kathleen Kramer at one among my native IEEE occasions earlier than she was elected IEEE president, and we spoke about my work,” she says. “After she was elected, I noticed that I might like to grow to be the president of IEEE sometime.
“I hope someday that I can step into the identical footwear as her and proceed to assist IEEE the identical means it helped me.”
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