- Drone demo, Come to SDSU to learn about drone platforms, data products, FAA rules and career options on Nov. 19, 2025.
- Tutorial: Unleashing the Power of Airborne Computing UAV System, IEEE SMC 2025, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 5, 2025.
- Workshop: The 6th Workshop on Enhanced Open Networked Airborne Computing Platform, University of Nevada-Reno, NV, Nov. 14, 2025. Register here.
- 2025 Robotics Summer Camp: Join us for a 6-day long program at San Diego State University and learn about Robotics, AI, renewable energy, cybersecuriy! We are looking for interested and committed middle and high school students to join this year’s cohort. Check the camp website for more information.
- Student Design Competition: The 4th Student Design Competition on Networked Computing on the Edge at 2025 CPS-IoT Week, Irvine, CA, May 6-9, 2025.
- Drone demo: Come to SDSU to learn about drone platforms, data products, FAA rules and career options on Nov. 20, 2024. Check more here.
- Workshop: The 4nd Workshop on Enhanced Open Networked Airborne Computing Platform, Florida State University, FL, Nov. 26, 2024. Register here.
- Join us on October 24, 2024, for the Poznań Workshop, where you’ll explore drone technology and networked airborne computing. Click this Zoom link to join the meeting. Don’t miss it!
- 2024 Robotics Summer Camp: Join us for a week long program at San Diego State University and learn about Robotics! We are looking for interested and committed middle and high school students to join this year’s cohort. Check the camp website for more information.
- Workshop: The 3nd Workshop on Enhanced Open Networked Airborne Computing Platform, ISICN, San Juan, Mar. 18, 2024. Register here.
- Student Design Competition: The 3rd Student Design Competition on Networked Computing on the Edge at 2024 CPS-IoT Week, Hong Kong, May 13-16, 2024.
- Workshop: The 2nd Workshop on Enhanced Open Networked Airborne Computing Platform, San Diego State University, CA, Jan. 19, 2024. Register here.
- Workshop: 2023 Workshop on Enhanced Open Networked Airborne Computing Platform, University of Texas at Arlington, TX, Oct. 27, 2023.
- Tutorial: Unleashing the Power of Airborne Computing in UAV Systems, IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, Hong Kong, 10 – 13 October, 2023.
- 2023 Robotics Summer Camp: Join us for a week long program at San Diego State University and learn about Robotics! We are looking for interested and committed middle and high school students to join this year’s cohort. Check the camp website for more information.
- Tutorial: Towards UAV-based Airborne Computing: Applications, Design and Prototype, International Conference on Cyber-physical Social Intelligence (ICCSI), Nov. 18, 2022.
- SDSU ECE research seminar: "Towards UAV-based Networked Airborne Computing in Uncertain Airspace", Sep. 30, 2022.
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Robotics Summer Camp: Join us for a two-week long program at San Diego State University and learn about Robotics! We are looking for interested and committed high school students to join this year’s cohort. Check the flyer for more information. To apply, submit the following items:
- Application form
- Recommendation form from a STEM teacher submit at www.tinyurl.com/robotics22ts
- Tutorial: Towards UAV-based Airborne Computing: Applications, Design and Prototype, ICUAS, Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 21, 2022
- NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in Networked Airborne Computing: The SMILE lab is looking for two self-motivated undergraduate students to participate in a funded NSF-REU project on networked airborne computing during the summer of 2022. Check here for more information. To apply, please send your resume/CV to Dr. Xie at jxie4@sdsu.edu by April 8, 2022.
- Student Design Competition: The 2nd Student Design Competition on Networked Computing on the Edge in CPS-IoT Week 2022, Milan, May 3-6, 2022
- Tutorial: Towards UAV-Based Airborne Computing: Applications, Design, and Prototype, IEEE Latin-American Conference on Communications, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Nov. 17-19, 2021
- WE Believe Program - The SDSU Women in Engineering (WE) are proud to announce a new summer program for black students to gain engineering skills. WE BELIEVE: WomEn and Black Empowered Learners Interning in Engineering EnVironmEnts is a four-week internship for 20 high school and community college students selected from around San Diego County. The flyer is available here.
- Tutorial: Towards Networked Airborne Computing: Applications, Challenges, and Enabling Technologies, ICUAS, Athens, Greece, June 15-18, 2021
- Student Design Competition: Networked Computing on the Edge in CPS-IoT Week 2021, May 18-21, 2021.
Announcements
Media Reports
- February 2025, SDSU, Robotics Camp Leads to SDSU YEE Scholar Selection.
- August 2024, The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego State University develops Midas touch in competing for research money
- December 2023, SDSU, Customizable Computing Platform Facilitates Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Research
- March 2023, Scholarship Prep, Women of Influence Motivate Students in Leadership Panel
- January 2023, SDSU, Self-Driving Cars: The Next Computing Revolution But Far From Perfect
- October 2022, SDSU, Presidential Research Fellows Honored for Advancing Their Fields
- August 2022, SDSU, STEM Pathways Student Studies Drone Hand Gesture Recognition
- August 2022, SDSU, Engineering Summer Research Concludes
- July 2022, SDSU, Undergraduates Participate in STEM Pathways Program
- July 2022, SDSU, SDSU Hosts Robotics Camp 2022
- May 2022, SDSU, Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Hosts Design Competition via NSF CAREER Award Funding
- March 2022, SDSU, A Q&A with Two of SDBJ’s Top 50 Women of Influence in Engineering
- February 2022, UNT, Flying Computer Cluster
- February 2022, CSU, Droning on
- February 2022, SDBJ, Women of Influence: Engineering
- 2021, SDSU Research Highlights, Taking drone computing to the next level
- August 2021, SDSU, WE-BELIEVE Summer Internship Program Prepares Students to Develop Their Identities as Engineers
- March 2021, SD Metro Magazine, Daily Business Report – March 10, 2021
- May 2021, SDSU, SDSU Engineering Professor Co-Organized the International Student Design Competition at 2021 CPS-IoT Week
- March 2021, UNT, Alumna receives CAREER Award to further drone research she began at UNT
- March 2021, SDSU, Drones that Can Calculate, Communicate and Solve Complex Problems
- February 2021, SDSU, Dr. Junfei Xie Receives the NSF CAREER Award
Outreach Activities
- 2025 SDSU Drone Demo Day. Dr. Xie and her team demonstrated the drone platforms they have developed at the SDSU Drone Demo Day on Nov. 19, 2025.
- SMC Tutorial. In October 2025, Dr. Xie and her colleagues including Dr. Paweł Śniatała from PUT, Dr. Iryna Stopochkyna from the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” (KPI), Dr. Yan Wan from UTA, Dr. Shengli Fu from UNT, Dr. Kejie Lu from UPRM, and Dr. Jiacun Wang from Monmouth University organized a tutorial session titled "Unleashing the Power of Airborne Computing UAV System".
- Visiting BTU In October 2025, Dr. Xie and Dr. Paweł Śniatała from PUT visited the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU), which is a member of the EUNICE European University alliance. During their visit, Dr. Xie delivered a talk titled "Advancing UAV Intelligence: Networked Airborne Computing and AI-Driven Decision Making".
- 2025 MESA Lunch & Learning. Dr. Xie delivered an invited talk titled “Machine Learning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” and her student, Haomeng Zhang, presented a live drone demonstration during the MESA Lunch & Learning session in June 2025. The event was attended by more than 30 MESA students.
- 2025 Summer Research Internship Program. Three students, including Cesar Salinas (Undergraduate student), Nile Celaya (Community-college student), and Fraser Meagher (Undergraduate student), worked at the SMILE lab during Summer 2025 on UAV-related research projects. They are co-advised by Dr. Xie's graduate students, Dongge Jia, Haomeng Zhang, and Ke Ma, respectively.
- 2025 SDSU Robotics Summer Camp. This year, we welcomed 24 campers and introduced a variety of new activities such as tutorials on Python programming, renewable energy, cybersecurity, and data science. Check this media post for more information!
- 2024 SDSU Drone Demo Day. Dr. Xie and her team demonstrated the drone platforms they have developed at the SDSU Drone Demo Day on Nov. 20, 2024.
- 2024 Poznań Workshop. In October 2024, Dr. Xie visited the Poznań University of Technology (PUT) and delivered a talk titled "Toward Networked Airborne Computing in Uncertain Airspace" at the Poznań workshop. During her visit, she also toured PUT's airport/Aviation lab, where she had the unique opportunity to pilot a small aircraft for the first time.
- 2024 UNT Future Engineers Summer Camp. Dr. Xie co-organized the drone activities for the 2024 UNT Future Engineers Summer Camp. During this one-day event, campers ware introduced to drone technology and gained hands-on experience controlling drones both indoors and outdoors.
- 2024 SDSU Robotics Summer Camp. This year, we welcomed 24 campers and introduced exciting new drone activities, featuring currilumn and materials provided by Drone Legends. Check this media post for more information!
- 2024 STEM Pathways program. Owen Chavira, a community-college student, worked in the SMILE lab on drone navigation safety.
- 2024 EIS Girls Take Flight. In April 2024, Dr. Xie delivered an invited talk titled “Autonomous Systems: Drones” and her student, Haomeng Zhang, presented a live drone demonstration to participants of the Girls Take Flight program at the Elementary Institute of Science. The event was attended by over 30 girls from grades 10 and 11, inspiring the next generation of innovators in STEM.
- 2023 STEAM Explore Day. Dr. Xie delivered an invited talk on “Autonomous Systems: Drones” and her student, Haomeng Zhang, presented a live drone demonstration at the STEAM Exploration Day in November 2023, which was attended by over 30 students in the 9th grade.
- 2023 SDSU Robotics Summer Camp. This one-week-long program trained middle and high school students on programming, robotics, sensing and autonomy through hands-on experience with mbots and DJI Tello drones. Check out this Youtube video to see the activities that took place during this camp.
- 2023 STEM Pathways program. Justin Pudiquet, a community-college student, worked in the SMILE lab on drone face tracking through this program.
- Lab Tours. In 2023, the SMILE Lab provided lab tours for multiple groups of middle and high school students from the Bell Middle School S.W.A.G (Student With Achievement Goals) program, Explore SDSU Admitted Student Day, and the Robotics Summer Camp.
- Women's History Month panel. Dr. Xie was a guest speaker for the Women’s History Month panel hosted at the Scholarship Prep Charter School – Oceanside in March 2023. This panel was attended by over 200 students in grades 5th-8th, and was zoomed to younger students. .
- 2022 SDSU Robotics Summer Camp. This two-weeks-long program trained high school students on programming, robotics, sensing and autonomy through hands-on experience with mbots and DJI Tello drones. Check out this Youtube video to see the activities that took place during this camp.
- 2022 STEM Pathways program. Two community-college students, Roxana Nevarez and Amy Gonzalez, worked in the SMILE lab through this program. Roxana presented her work on hand gesture-base drone control at the 2022 SACNAS. Amy presented her work on body gesture-based drone control at the 2022 ABRCMS.
- 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Academy program. One undergraduate student, Johnny Rosas, worked in the SMILE lab on UAV swarm control through this program.
- 2022 EIS FIRE UP! 25 middle-school girls visited the SMILE lab.
- 2021 WE BELIEVE internship program. Two undergraduate students, Zoe Jeffrey and Jervaughn Gaines, worked in the SMILE lab on drone research through this program.
