ICARUS-1: The Next Step in UAS Flight; Seeing, Deciding, and Justifying: The Technological Politics of the 2021 Kabul Drone Strike 7 views

My technical capstone project and my STS research paper are connected through a shared concern with how unmanned flight technologies are designed and used within larger systems of human decision-making. In my technical capstone, my team developed ICARUS, a dragonfly-inspired unmanned aerial system (UAS) intended to explore how bio-inspired morphology and independent wing actuation could improve hovering and maneuverability in small UAS. In my STS research, I examined a very different aerial technology: the U.S. drone-strike system involved in the 2021 Kabul strike. While one project focuses on designing a more capable UAS and the other analyzes a case of technological harm, both ask how technical systems distribute control, shape action, and affect the people who are exposed to the technology. Together, they show that engineering is not only about whether a system works, but also about how it operates in a broader social and political context. My technical work describes the design and development of a four-wing, dragonfly-inspired UAS created as a proof-of-concept platform for bio-inspired aerial maneuverability. The project centered on translating principles of dragonfly flight into an engineered system using DC motors, custom-designed wings and circuit boards, and control algorithms. This project also used simulation tools such as computational fluid dynamics and physics-based simulation to study flight dynamics and develop control scripts, with the goal of achieving a stable hover. The project ultimately demonstrated the feasibility of a lightweight quad-wing platform and established a foundation for future capstone work in bio-inspired aerial robotics. My STS research paper argues that the 2021 Kabul drone strike, which killed 10 innocent Afghan civilians, should not be understood simply as an instance of human error, but rather as a product of the sociotechnical arrangement of drone warfare itself. Using Langdon Winner’s framework of technological politics, I analyze how the drone-strike system centralizes decision-making power, turns ambiguous sensor data into actionable certainty, and diffuses accountability after civilians are killed. My case study shows that the strike’s deadly outcome was shaped not only by individual judgment, but also by the design of the broader technical and organizational system that structured what could be seen, who could decide, and how responsibility was assigned afterward. Working on these two projects together made the value of sociotechnical thinking much clearer to me. My capstone project taught me how difficult it is to develop a functional aerial system under real engineering constraints, while my STS project pushed me to think more carefully about what it means to design technologies that can shape human judgment. Even though the dragonfly-inspired UAS is a small research prototype and not a weaponized system, my STS research reminded me that engineering decisions are never neutral. In summary, working on both my technical project and my STS research paper helped me understand aerial technologies from multiple perspectives. In my future robotics work, I want to carry forward both perspectives: the technical ambition to build capable systems and the ethical responsibility to consider how those systems affect others.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Hughes Award 2026 Winner; drones; bio-inspired; unmanned aerial systems

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technical Advisors: Haibo Dong, Chris Goyne STS Advisor: Benjamin Laugelli Technical Team Members: Lily Byers, Kathryn Geoffroy, Theodore LengKong, Jafar Mansoor, Justin Matara, Owen McKenney, Andrew Mercer, Carter Nickola, Jeremiah Nubbe, Nicholas Owen, Mark Piatko, Luis Ramos-Garcia, James Scullin, Matthew Sendi, George Zach

English

All rights reserved by the author (no additional license for public reuse)

2026-05-08