Columbia Robotics

AQUAS · In development

I’m working on software for AQUAS, a Columbia Robotics project developing an unmanned surface vehicle to monitor and sample harmful algal blooms. My work focuses on getting information from the robot into a form that people can use to understand its activity remotely.

I architected a robot-to-cloud telemetry pipeline using MQTT and PostgreSQL. It is designed to carry sensor readings from the robot to a database for remote monitoring, providing the data behind the visual interface.

On the frontend, I’m developing a geospatial dashboard in React with MapLibre. The planned views include heatmaps, time-animated tracking, and comparisons between robots. The goal is to connect readings to where and when they were collected, so someone can follow a robot’s path and explore changes over time.

I’m also developing satellite-driven pathfinding, with the aim of using satellite data to help the robot detect and target harmful algal blooms. That work extends the project from displaying collected information toward deciding where the robot should go next.

AQUAS is a team project, and this page describes my software contributions. The dashboard and pathfinding work are still in development.