Baseball Avoidance Multirotor

This project was developed as part of the Baseball Avoidance Multirotor (BAM) challenge from NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). The objective of this project was to detect, predict, and avoid a baseball in real time while minimizing deviation from the drone’s original trajectory.

FIG. 1 — TEAM EBK AT SDSU SENIOR DESIGN, MAY 6 2026

FIG. 2 — BAM LOGO

The system is divided into three main components: perception, prediction, and planning. The entire system was implemented entirely in MATLAB/Simulink.

As the Project Lead, I was responsible for the overall project management, system design, and integration. I led the team in developing the perception, prediction, and planning algorithms. I also coordinated the testing and validation of the system, ensuring that all components worked together seamlessly. Additionally, I contributed to the implementation of the MATLAB/Simulink code and the preparation of the final paper and presentation materials.

The final program implementation successfully avoided the baseball; however, it was not able to return to its original path autonomously on any tested trajectories.

Flight video

Class presentation

FIG. 3 — SENIOR DESIGN DAY POSTER

All sharable code can be found in the GitHub repository linked below.