Dr Stephen Prior

Dr Stephen D Prior is a Reader in Unmanned Air Vehicles within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Southampton.

Dr Prior gained a BEng Mechanical Engineering degree in 1987 and a PhD in Robotics from Middlesex University, London in 1993.

He is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, Corporate Member of the IMechE and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

His research interests are in the areas of VTOL Aeronautics, Autonomous Uncrewed Systems, Aerial Robotics and Design Engineering.

He was Project Lead for the MoD Grand Challenge i-Spy team in 2008 and was the Team Leader for Team HALO, winner of the DARPA UAVForge Competition 2012.

He has been on the editorial board for the International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles since 2010 and the Unmanned Systems Journal since 2013.

He was a non-executive director of Tethered Drone Systems Ltd and is the CEO of Hybrid Drones Ltd, a company developing heavy-lift hybrid drone technology.

Prizes

• Winner of the DARPA UAVForge competition (2012)
• International Robotics Challenge Event 2017 (2017)
• IMechE UAS Challenge 2018 - Overall Runner-Up Team Athena (2018)
• Taiwan Institute of Knowledge Innovation (TIKI) 2018 Fellow. (2018)
• IMechE UAS Challenge 2019 - Innovation Prize - Team Volta (2019)
• Eurobot (UK) 2022 (2022)