Matthew J. Saenz

U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Matthew J. Saenz is a pioneering researcher in coastal robotics and autonomous systems, with a focused expertise in developing uncrewed ground vehicles for hazardous nearshore environments. His primary research areas include amphibious robotic survey systems, surfzone autonomy, and coastal geomorphology mapping. Saenz’s major contributions center on demonstrating the viability of commercial off-the-shelf amphibious robots for seamless topography-bathymetry surveys across the beachface and surfzone—a notoriously dangerous and data-scarce region. His 2023 paper on the Bayonet-350 platform, enhanced with real-time-kinematic (RTK) GPS, has garnered 4 citations for its practical approach to bridging the land-sea survey gap. In his 2022 work evaluating autonomous system performance, Saenz leveraged the unique testbed capabilities of the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Field Research Facility in Duck, North Carolina, to assess robot resilience in breaking waves and turbulent flows. While early in his career, Saenz’s research directly addresses critical needs for safer, lower-cost coastal data collection, with potential applications in storm response, beach nourishment monitoring, and military reconnaissance. His work represents a significant step toward operationalizing robotics in one of Earth’s most challenging environments.