The Emergency Management and Homeland Security Program is part of the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy at Florida State University. They have been utilizing drones extensively to deliver world class education and disaster recovery. They sponsor this project to increase autonomy and to reduce the human effort involved in Search and Rescue Operations.

Navstik Labs is a technology startup working in the space of Autonomous Systems. They work with robots and strive to make them autonomous. They envision a world with connected things that can intuitively interact with us, as well as amongst themselves, and can perceive and act on their environment with a high degree of autonomy.