Research
Published work spanning computer vision, rocketry, and climate tech.
View Google Scholar profile ↗Design and Fabrication of an Autonomous Bird Deterrent Robot Prototype
Jeff Mboya, Steve Nyaga
JKUAT — Department of Mechatronics Engineering · Supervised by Dr.-Ing. Jackson G. Njiri
Designed and built a rover-type robot that autonomously detects and deters granivorous pest birds in agricultural fields. The system combines a YOLOv5s computer-vision pipeline for real-time bird detection with an onboard deterrent mechanism, enabling deployment without continuous human supervision.
Field deployment
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Hardware detail
Simulation and Airflow Experimentation of a Multi-Layer Adsorbent Chamber for Enhanced Direct Air Capture Efficiency
Earl S Mogire, Angina J Mboya, Emmanuel E Bakit, Patrick M Musembi, Mike Bwondera, Duncan K Githinji, Victoria V Barasa
Proceedings of the Sustainable Research and Innovation Conference
CFD simulation and experimental analysis of a multi-layer adsorbent chamber design for Direct Air Capture, reducing airflow resistance and fan energy requirements compared to conventional axial flow designs.
Improving Small Pest Bird Detection in YOLOv5s for Autonomous Bird Deterrent Systems
Jeff Mboya, Steve Nyaga, Jackson Njiri, Shohei Aoki
JKUAT-COETEC
Enhanced YOLOv5s with a DenseNet backbone, Transformer encoder blocks, and BiFPN neck to improve detection of small granivorous pest birds in agricultural settings. Achieved a 4.8% mAP gain with only 4 ms additional inference time.
Development of Solid Propellant Motor for Low Altitude Model Rockets
Felix W Gateru, Sammy K Oina, Jeff Mboya, Ian Kibandi, Bernard Owiti, Shohei Aoki
JKUAT-COETEC
Design, simulation, and static test of a compact solid propellant motor using locally sourced sucrose/dextrose fuel and potassium nitrate oxidiser. Motor produced 35 N average thrust (48 N peak) and propelled a test rocket to approximately 34 m apogee.
Development of a Solid Propellant Motor for High-Powered Model Rockets
Washington K Kigani, Felix W Gateru, Maureen W Gichia, Valerian K Nyerere, Jeff Mboya, Bernard Owiti, Shohei Aoki
JKUAT-COETEC
Propulsion system design for the Nakuja-2 rocket targeting a 500 m apogee. The motor achieved 151.7 N average thrust and lifted the rocket to 280 m, with remote telemetry via a custom data acquisition system.