Dr. Avishkar Seth is a Robotics Research Engineer and Senior Research Officer at the Advanced Drone Systems Research Centre (ADSRC) within the School of Computing at Macquarie University, Sydney. He specializes in the design and deployment of autonomous aerial systems, avionics, and advanced sensing technologies. Avishkar earned his Ph.D. in Robotics Engineering from Macquarie University (2025), where he also completed his Master of Research (2021) and Master of Engineering (2020).

Avishkar is the Principal Investigator on the $2.24 Million AEA Innovate Grant (2025), a prestigious Australian Government project focused on revolutionizing drone flight through autonomous mid-air battery swap technology. His research portfolio includes leading-edge work on neuromorphic vision systems for high-speed biological counting (FlyCount) and resilient navigation for GNSS-denied environments. He is also a Chief Investigator on an international collaboration with Ghent University for autonomous underwater 3D mapping using Gaussian Splatting.

He holds two provisional patents for Mid-air Drone-to-Drone Item Handoff and Intelligent Adaptive Balanced Lift. His academic excellence has been recognized with 2nd Place at the Big Data Society Hackathon and the 2023 Post Graduate Research Fund (PGRF). An active mentor, Avishkar has guided the MQ Robotics Club to 3rd Place at the national QUT Droid Racing Challenge (2024) and also serves as a mentor for the MQ MARS Rover and Drone Student Societies.

Services

• Guest Editor for Symmetry in Robotics and Aerial Systems (MDPI).
• Vice-Chair of IEEE-Macquarie, Sydney (2019–2025).
• Secretary of IEEE Women in Engineering, Sydney (2019–2025).
• Technical Reviewer for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), IEEE Sensors Journal, ACM MobiSys-DroNet, and Springer Nature.

Research Topics

• Aerial Robot Autonomy: Autonomous drone landing, swarm coordination, and mid-air battery servicing.
• Neuromorphic Sensing: Prototyping high-speed vision systems for industrial and environmental counting.
• Resilient Navigation: Beacon-based sensing and stochastic control for contested/GNSS-denied airspace.
• Aquatic Robotics: Underwater 3D mapping using deep vision and Gaussian Splatting for biodiversity assessment.
• Collaborative Logistics: Cooperative drone delivery via push-based lift and stabilization.
• IoT & Smart Cities: Designing sensor networks and real-time data analysis for urban environments.

Teaching

• COMP 8291: IoT and Embedded Systems (Co-Instructor)
• MTRN 4068: Wireless Mechatronics (Co-Designer & Co-Instructor)
• ENGG 4201/8201: IoT System Design (Co-Designer & Co-Instructor)
• ENGG 2000/3000: Engineering Project Practice (Lab Tutor)