Dear All:
This is a reminder with regard to below two 2021 May FoRCE Online Seminars:
i) Dr. Irene M. Gregory from National Aeronautics and Space Administration will give an online seminar on May 14, 12 PM EDT. To join his online seminar entitled “Urban Air Mobility: A Control-Centric Approach to Addressing Technical Challenge”, simply use this WebEx link:
WebEx Link: https://force.my.webex.com/force.my/j.php?MTID=m57ea82432c42e3e86ab4df910933de7a
Meeting number (access code): 182 878 5141
Meeting password: M2QeJTSHa67 (62735874 from phones and video systems)
ii) Dr. David Casbeer from Air Force Research Laboratory will give an online seminar on May 28, 12 PM EDT. To join her online seminar entitled “Control and Optimization as a Foundation for Multi-UAV Coordination”, simply use this WebEx link:
WebEx Link: https://force.my.webex.com/force.my/j.php?MTID=mff686ca99351a8667e55da862aaba992
Meeting number (access code): 182 211 1784
Meeting password: eZuy9TYpx25 (39899897 from phones and video systems)
Below you can find the abstracts of these two talks.
All the best,
K. Merve Dogan, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, dogank@erau.edu
Tansel Yucelen, University of South Florida, yucelen@usf.edu
Seminar i): May 14 (12:00p Eastern Time): Urban Air Mobility: A Control-Centric Approach to Addressing Technical Challenge by Dr. Irene M. Gregory (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
Abstract: Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is an emerging aviation sector and is playing an integral part in the on-demand mobility revolution. UAM is powered by the convergence of advances in distributed electrical propulsion (DEP) and vehicle autonomy. The complexity of operations in the urban environment and the unconventional vehicle configurations designed to take advantage of new propulsion technologies, result in numerous challenges that benefit from a control-centric approach. In this talk we outline some of these challenges and present our current approach to addressing them. For example, in order to achieve full market potential and access to UAM, vehicle autonomous flight is required. A key barrier to autonomous flight in a large multi-agent system is dealing with off-nominal situations and contingencies in a safe and predictable manner. We present our approach to intelligent contingency management, and share recent results and open problems. Additionally, we discuss another major barrier to ubiquitous UAM – the noise signature produced by vehicles with multiple rotors. We present our approach to minimizing such noise within the framework of the acoustically-aware vehicle.
Biography: Dr. Irene M. Gregory is the NASA Senior Technologist for Advanced Control Theory and Applications. Dr. Gregory received a S.B, in Aeronautics and Astronautics form MIT and a Ph.D. in Control and Dynamics Systems from Caltech. Her research has spanned the entire flight regime from hypersonic vehicles to slow subsonic UAVs with unconventional configurations. She is an author of over 100 referenceable publications. Her current interests are in the areas of robust autonomous systems, self-aware vehicle intelligent contingency management, acoustically-aware vehicles, and resilient control for advanced, unconventional configurations with particular focus on Urban Air Mobility and autonomous cargo. She is a Fellow of the AIAA, a senior member of IEEE and a member of IFAC; and, serves on IEEE Control Systems Society Aerospace Control and Intelligent Control Technical Committees as well as on AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Technical Committee.
Seminar ii): May 28 (12:00p Eastern Time): Control and Optimization as a Foundation for Multi-UAV Coordination by Dr. David Casbeer (Air Force Research Laboratory)
Abstract: In this talk we will discuss how optimization and control theory play a fundamental, and often overlooked, role in multi-UAV coordination. We will see how the solutions of optimal control problems are essential in combinatorial assignment algorithms. Using intuition gained by solving these problem, one can intuit how results dealing with static task assignment extend to cases where the tasks are dynamic in nature. The concepts discussed in this talk will be highlighted with specific problems that are relevant to defense applications.
Biography: David Casbeer is the Team Lead over Cooperative & Intelligent UAV Control with the Control Science Center of Excellence, Aerospace Systems Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory. In this capacity, he conducts and leads basic research in cooperative control and decision making of autonomous UAVs, with a particular emphasis on high-level decision making and planning under uncertainty. He received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Brigham Young University in 2003 and 2009, respectively. He is a former chair of the AIAA Intelligent Systems technical committee. He currently serves as a Senior Editor for the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems and an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems.
