Chris Brunner

Qualcomm (United Kingdom), Qualcomm (United States)

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Chris Brunner is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the intersection of consumer electronics and autonomous aerial systems. His research has pioneered the innovative use of smartphone technology — including cameras, gyroscopes, and accelerometers — as cost-effective platforms for powering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and swarm robotics. By leveraging the dramatic improvements in price-to-performance ratios of consumer-grade sensors and processors, Brunner has demonstrated that accessible, off-the-shelf technology can enable sophisticated autonomous flight capabilities, even in GPS-denied environments. His most influential contribution, "Smartphones Power Flying Robots" (2015), garnered 40 citations and established the foundational feasibility of repurposing smartphone hardware for aerial robotics. Building on this, his 2016 work on swarm coordination — cited 20 times — extended these principles to multi-robot cooperative systems. His later research on autonomous flight and 3D reconstruction further advanced cooperative control methodologies for practical real-world applications. Brunner's work is particularly significant for democratizing aerial robotics research, lowering barriers to entry for institutions and developers who might otherwise lack access to expensive, specialized hardware. His contributions represent a compelling bridge between consumer technology trends and cutting-edge autonomous systems research.