Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Sihao Sun is a leading researcher in autonomous aerial robotics, specializing in agile quadrotor flight, vision-based control, and aerial manipulation. His most impactful contribution is the development of **Agilicious** (2022, 127 citations), an open-source and open-hardware platform that provides a standardized, versatile testbed for agile quadrotor research. By integrating perception, planning, learning, and control, Agilicious enables researchers to focus on core challenges rather than hardware setup, accelerating progress in high-speed autonomous flight. Sun also advanced **perception-aware perching on powerlines** (2022, 30 citations), a critical capability for long-duration inspection missions. His work enables multirotors to autonomously locate and land on powerlines for recharging, addressing a key bottleneck in persistent aerial monitoring. More recently, Sun has explored **proximal cooperative aerial manipulation** (2025) using vertically stacked drones, pushing the boundaries of multi-robot coordination for physical tasks. With over 160 total citations, Sun’s contributions bridge the gap between theoretical robotics and practical deployment, offering open-source tools and novel solutions for real-world aerial autonomy. His work is essential reading for students and researchers in drone technology, vision-based control, and field robotics.