One of the autonomous drones used to survey penguins in Antartica. Credit: Parker Levinson
Stanford University researcher Mac Schwager entered the world of penguin counting through a chance meeting at his sister-in-law’s wedding in June 2016. There, he learned that Annie Schmidt, a biologist at Point Blue Conservation Science, was seeking a better way to image a large penguin colony in Antarctica. Schwager, who is an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, saw an opportunity to collaborate, given his work on controlling swarms of autonomous flying robots.
