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Research

Controls

We lead controls research, dealing with the position, direction, safety and communication aspects of a single vehicle or swarm of vehicles in motion through air, water or space.

We offer courses in the guidance, navigation, and control of unmanned aerial systems as well as the optimization and control of networked systems. We are leaders in research in control of autonomous systems, bio-inspired engineering, model predictive control, dynamical modeling, and estimation for single and distributed systems. We develop tools that address the temporal, spatial and nonlinear challenges posed by autonomy.

A&A undergrad and graduate students have the opportunity to explore practical applications for autonomy by gaining hands-on flight-testing and field operations experience with interdisciplinary collaborators and partners.

Behçet Açikmeşe

Key research areas

  • Automatic control
  • Autonomous vehicle control
  • Control theory
  • Dynamics and optimization
  • Flight operations
  • Underwater vehicle design
  • Unmanned aerial systems

Associated faculty

Research highlights

NASA’s SPLICE is the landing app Apollo didn’t have

Researchers in the Autonomous Control Lab and the RAIN Lab developed guidance algorithms to help land spacecrafts in areas that we don’t have mapped out well.

A successful Mars rover landing ends with a crash

A&A’s Behcet Açıkmeşe helped develop hurling algorithms to land NASA's rovers Curiosity and Perseverance. 

A&A's Research Takes Flight

A&A research will get the rare opportunity to fly in real flight conditions on the 2021 Boeing ecoDemonstrator.

Hide and Seek

The Autonomous Flight Systems Lab builds a drone-based machine learning dataset to find those lost in the wilderness.

Award-winning student team

A&A’s Charlie Kelly and Taylor Reynolds launched the A&A CubeSat Club, with support from Aeroject Rocketdyne. The club is developing its first satellite, SOC-i, that will reconcile constraints in its orientation and imaging systems. With these capabilities, SOC-i will be a step toward comprehensive environmental monitoring.

Related News

Evelyn Madewell headshot

Thu, 04/04/2024

A&A makes a RUCKUS in search and rescue

Undergrad Evelyn Madewell tells us about a new drone-enhanced system for wilderness search and rescue.

render of a group of rockets on a station

Tue, 03/19/2024

Onboard decision-making record

A&A researchers are the first to meet an elusive NASA requirement of subsecond onboard decisions for planetary landings.

Senna Keesing headshot

Thu, 02/22/2024

A&A’s Senna Keesing wins Brooke Owens Fellowship

An interview with Senna Keesing on her research with particle physics, submarine navigation and her Fellowship win.

Mehran Mesbahi headshot

Wed, 02/14/2024

Mesbahi elected AIAA Fellow

Professor Mehran Mesbahi will be formally inducted into the 2024 class of AIAA Fellows.