Robotics Research Engineer

About Me

Hey, fellow human! I’m Dr Alice James, a Robotics Research Engineer at Macquarie University. I work with robotics, avionics, and sensing systems, with a strong focus on aerial robot autonomy. I enjoy turning ideas into working systems and guiding others through training and practical learning. I’m also interested in entrepreneurship and the business side of technology, especially where engineering meets real impact. At my core, I’m curious. I believe the meaning of life is to live fully, explore, connect, and keep expanding our understanding of humanity and the universe around us. This shapes the way I work & build. I’m open to meaningful collaborations in robotics, innovation, and applied research.

🛠 Work Experience

🎓 Robotics Research Engineer @ Macquarie University

• 🚁 Advanced Drone Systems Research Centre, Jan 2025 - Present: I’m working as a Senior Research Officer on multiple projects in the aerial robot autonomy and sensing space. Our centre has also received $2M+ in grant funding for the Project Title: Autonomous Drone Battery Swap where I am the Chief Investigator.

🎓 Lecturer and Unit Convenor @ Macquarie University

• July 2024 - Present. I am a sessional lecturer and unit convenor for the units taught in Engineering [MTRN4068 Wireless Mechatronics] and Computing [COMP8291 IoT Embedded Operating Systems and Application Programming] teaching basics of autonomous robotics, and STM32 RTOS based programming.

🎓 Research Assistant @ Macquarie University

• 🚁 Autonomous Drone Landing Project, Sept 2022 - Jan 2026: Engaged in an ARC-funded collaboration with Skyy Network to implement real-world testing of machine learning models for outdoor drone operations.
• 🐝 High speed counting of black soldier flies, Jan 2024 - Dec 2024: Research assistant on an NSSN-funded project, developing, prototyping, and deploying a neuromorphic vision system in collaboration with ARC Entotech and Western Sydney’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems.
• 🌊 Aquatic Robotics - USV and ROV, Aug 2024 - Present: Ongoing.
• 🏙 Smart City Project, Nov 2019 - July 2021: Participated in an Australian Government Smart Cities project with City of Ryde, designing a sensor network, hardware prototyping, and real-time data analysis for a pedestrian counting system.

🎓 Education

Macquarie University, Sydney

• 🤖 Ph.D. in Robotics Engineering
  Feb 2022 - Oct 2025
• 🤖 M.Res in Robotics Engineering
  Feb 2021 - Dec 2021
• 🛠 M.Engg in Electronics Engineering
  Feb 2019 - Dec 2020

Mumbai University

• 🛠 B.Engg in Information Technology Engineering
  July 2013 - July 2018

Xavier’s College

• 🧪 HSC in Science
  July 2011 - June 2013

📚 Teaching @ Macquarie University

• 🤖 COMP8291 IoT Embedded Operating Systems and Application Programming, July 2024 - Present: Lecturer and Unit Convenor for unit on Embedded OS internals, covering kernel architecture, threads, device models, drivers, system calls, and filesystem utilities. This unit is intended to provide a practical understanding of embedded/real-time operating systems (OS) using STM32 and RTOS based learning platforms.
• 🤖 MTRN4068 Wireless Mechatronics, July 2020 - Present: Co-designed and co-taught an advanced undergraduate course on mobile robot design, programming, and hands-on experience using ROS, focusing on motor control, computer vision, mapping, localization, and navigation. MecQaBots
• 🌐 ENGG4201/8201 IoT System Design, Feb 2021 - Present: Co-designed and co-taught an advanced course in designing, building, and programming IoT systems, focusing on sensor integration, web design, data analysis, and machine learning for IoT applications.
• 🛠 ENGG2000/3000 Engineering Project Practice, July 2022 - Nov 2022: Lab mentor for the SPINE unit, which blends online modules with hands-on, project-based learning to develop professional and transferable competencies.

🏆 Achievements

💰 Research Grants & Major Projects

• 🥇 AEA Innovate Grant: Autonomous Drone Battery Swap, 2025: Au$2,240,200. Key researcher on a project to commercialize mid-air battery exchange technology for continuous flight missions (Project: AEA Record).
• 🥇 Deep Vision in Autonomous Underwater 3D Mapping for Biodiversity Assessment, June 2025 – May 2026: Chief Investigator. An international research collaboration between Ghent University and Macquarie University utilizing Gaussian Splatting for marine monitoring.
• 🥇 Virtual-GPS for GNSS-Denied Airspace, 2025: Project lead on beacon-based sensing and stochastic control systems for resilient UAS navigation in contested environments.
• 🥇 Warehouse Automation Grant, Sept 2024: Au$15,000. Chief Investigator for “Automatic Empty Locations Check in the Warehouse using a Drone” in partnership with Legrand.
• 🥇 PGRF 2023 - Post Graduate Research Fund, Oct 2023, Macquarie University, Au$6000, Research & Travel Grant in competitive university-wide competition.

Patents

• 🥇 Mid-air Drone to Drone Balanced Item Handoff, Provisional Patent Filed: MQC Ref: 2023005, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Endrowednes Kuantama, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Richard Han
• 🥇 Intelligent and adaptive balanced lift via drone swarms, Provisional Patent Filed: MQC Ref: 2023005, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Endrowednes Kuantama, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Richard Han

🏆 Awards

• 🥇 Travel Grant - AeroBridge, MobiCom 2024, Nov 2024, Macquarie University, Au$5000, Travel grant for presenting at MobiCom 2024.
• 🥇 Annual Australia QUT Droid Racing Challenge, July 2024, Queensland University of Technology, 3rd Prize, Mentored MQ Robotics Club team.
• 🥇 Inter University HDR Competition, July 2024, 1st Place - Cash Prize of Au$300, in the Higher Degree Research Student University-wide competition.
• 🥇 Inter University HDR Competition, July 2023, 3rd Place - Cash Prize of Au$100, in the Higher Degree Research Student University-wide competition.
• 🥇 Hackathon 2020 - Big Data Society, Macquarie University, Mar 2020, Big Data Society, Macquarie University, 2nd Place - Cash Prize of Au$1,700, AI-Enabled Education Hackathon.

Certificates

• 🛩️ Summer Training Program on Quadrotor and RC Aircraft, Certificate No: 44390012, Permanent Link: Skyfi Labs Certificate Verification

🤝 Volunteering

• Peer Reviewer: IEEE Sensors Journal, ICST, International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems, ICARM, ACM MobiSys-DroNet, MDPI Information, MDPI Algorithms, Guest Editor- Symmetry in Robotics and Aerial Systems: Theory, Learning and Applications

• School of Engineering & Computing, Macquarie University: Co-Supervisor (Feb 2021 – Present) - Supervise and mentor students and research assistants in the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
• IEEE-Macquarie, Sydney: Chair (Feb 2019 – Oct 2025) - Organize seminars, student engagement, and represent at conferences.
• IEEE Women in Engineering, Sydney: Vice-Chair (Feb 2019 – Oct 2025) - Manage social media, website, and event planning.
• Venture Cafe, Sydney: Ambassador (Aug 2019 – Dec 2021)

📚 Research Publications

2026

• 🚁 Cooperative UAV Payload Transport with Autonomous Navigation, 2nd International Conference on Drones and Unmanned Systems (DAUS 2026), Salzburg, Austria, 25–27 February 2026, Authors: A. James, Avishkar Seth, Endrowednes Kuantama, Richard Han, Subhas Mukhopadhyay.

2025

• 🚁 Synchronized Mid-Air Drone Docking During Translational Motion, 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), Authors: Avishkar Seth, A. James, Endrowednes Kuantama, Richard Han, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Chengdu, China, 2025, pp. 757-763.
• 🤖 GARL: Genetic Algorithm-Augmented Reinforcement Learning to Detect Violations in Marker-Based Autonomous Landing Systems ICSE 2025 47th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering, L. Liang, Y. Deng, K. Morton, V. Kallinen, A. James, A. Seth, E. Kuantama, S. Mukhopadhyay, R. Han, X. Zheng.
• 🌊 Continuous Marine Monitoring via Autonomous UAV Handoff MobiSys ‘25 23rd ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, H. Kim, A. James, A. Seth, E. Kuantama, J. Williamson, Y. Feng, R. Han.
• 🚁 Towards Robust Autonomous Landing Systems: Iterative Solutions and Key Lessons Learned DSN-S 2025 55th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, S. Schroder, Y. Deng, A. James, A. Seth, K. Morton, S. Mukhopadhyay, R. Han, X. Zheng.
• 📦 Towards Optimizing Swarm Drone Delivery in RF-Denied Environments ACIVS 2025 Advanced Concepts for Intelligent Vision Systems, E. Kuantama, A. James, A. Seth, R. Han, S. Mukhopadhyay.
• 🛠️ A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Robust Autonomous Drone Testing Pipeline arXiv:2506.11400 [cs.SE] Y. Jiang, Y. Deng, S. Schroder, L. Liang, S. Gambhir, A. James, A. Seth, J. Pirrie, Y. Zhang, X. Zheng.

2024

• 🚗 MecQaBot: A Modular Robot Sensing and Wireless Mechatronics Framework for Education and Research - Conference: ICST 2024, International Conference on Sensing Technology, 2024, December, Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, DOI: 2411.13156v1
• 🐝 FlyCount: High-Speed Counting of Black Soldier Flies Using Neuromorphic Sensors, IEEE Sensors Journal, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, A. Marcireau, S. Mukhopadhyay, T. Hu, and R. Atayde. DOI: 10.1109/JSEN.2024.3504289.
• 🚁 Cooperative Drone Delivery via Push-based Lift with Payload Stabilization, DroNet ‘24, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Endrowednes Kuantama, Richard Han, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, DOI: 10.1145/3636534.3649382
• 🚁 AeroBridge: Autonomous Drone Handoff System for Emergency Battery Service, ACM Mobicom 2024, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Endrowednes Kuantama, Richard Han, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, DOI: 10.1145/3636534.3649382
• 🚁 Autonomous Drone Coordination in RF-denied Environments, ICARM 2024, Authors: Endrowednes Kuantama, Alice James, Avishkar Seth
• 🚁 Cooperative Drone Payload Delivery with Self Balancing Tray, ICARM 2024, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Endrowednes Kuantama, Richard Han, Subhas Mukhopadhyay
• 🚁 Flying IoT: Sensor Fusion Performance Analysis for UAV Applications, Book: IoT Sensors, ML, AI, and XAI, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Natalia Chatrath, Endrowednes Kuantama, Richard Han, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Publisher: Springer

2023

• 🚁 Aerodynamics and Sensing for Drone Parcel Delivery, ICST 2023, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Endrowednes Kuantama, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Richard Han, DOI: 10.1109/ICST59744.2023.10460847
• 🚁 Sensor Fusion for Indoor UAV Navigation, ICST 2023, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Endrowednes Kuantama, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Richard Han, DOI: 10.1109/ICST59744.2023.10460820
• 🚁 Drone High-Rise Aerial Delivery, Journal: Drones, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Endrowednes Kuantama, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Richard Han, DOI: 10.3390/drones7050300
• 📝 RLaGA: RL-Aided Genetic Algorithm for Landing Violation Search, ACM SIGSOFT/FSE 2023, Authors: Linfeng Liang, Yao Deng, Kye Morton, Valtteri Kallinen, Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Endrowednes Kuantama, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Richard Han, Xi Zheng
• 🚁 Flying Watchdog for Guard Patrol and Data Verification, Journal: Future Internet, Authors: E. Kuantama, A. Seth, A. James, Y. Zhang, DOI: 10.3390/fi15100340

2022

• 🚁 Vertical Trajectory Analysis for Drone Delivery via QR Code Detection, Conference: Sensing Technology, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Endrowednes Kuantama, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Richard Han
• 🌐 IoT System Design: A Project-Based Approach, Journal: Smart Sensors, Measurement and Instrumentation, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Subhas C. Mukhopadhyay
• 🛰️ TrackInk: IoT-Enabled Object Tracking in Space, Journal: Sensors, Authors: Cameron Aume, Keith Andrews, Shantanu Pal, Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Subhas Mukhopadhyay

2021

• 🤖 Realtime Hand Landmark Tracking for Prosthetic Arm, IEEE ROSE 2021, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Subhas C. Mukhopadhyay
• 🦾 Wearable 3D Posture Estimation for Lower Back Healthcare, IEEE ROSE 2021, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Subhas Mukhopadhyay
• 🤖 Autonomous Ground Vehicle for Off-Road Applications, Conference: Computational Intelligence, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Subhas Mukhopadhyay

2020

• 🚗 1/10th Scale Autonomous Vehicle with CNN, Journal: International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems, Authors: Avishkar Seth, Alice James, Subhas Mukhopadhyay
• 🌐 IoT-Enabled Sensor Node Tutorial, Journal: International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems, Authors: Alice James, Avishkar Seth, Subhas C. Mukhopadhyay

🛠 Skills

Robotics & Autonomy: Robotics Systems, UAV Autonomy, PX4 / ArduPilot, Pixhawk, Flight Testing, GPS RTK, Sensor Fusion, State Estimation

Embedded & Hardware: RTOS, STM32, Raspberry Pi, Jetson Orin Nano, UART/SPI/I2C/CAN, PCB Design (KiCad, Eagle), Electrical Testing, Hardware Debugging

Software & Simulation: Python, C++, MATLAB, ROS, Git/GitHub, Software Architecture, Simulation & Validation, Data Logging

Design & Manufacturing: CAD (Fusion 360, SolidWorks, Bambu), 3D Printing, Mech-Electrical Integration

Systems & Organisation: Lab Infrastructure, Computing Devices Org, Documentation (Overleaf), Experimental Design

Leadership & Business: Project Management, Research Translation, Entrepreneurship, High EQ, Interpersonal Skills