The research explores the area of intelligent autonomy of single and multiple cooperative agents with specific focus on “energy-efficient” mission planning, asset allocation, and control. “Energy efficiency” is the metric that defines the optimality of managing the “energy resources” in order to achieve specific mission objectives; "energy" is just one intuitive cost that is easy to visualize, but others can be designed and used depending on the specifics of the application. In many cases, the metric is directly related to the optimality of the onboard power management and the efficiency of harvesting free energy of the surrounding environment; both the dynamics of energy recuperation and the energy-driven optimal planning are of equal importance. The research involves both the theoretical and software developments which are followed by the hardware-software verification in the lab and in actual flight experimentation. The range of projects includes a variety of realistic applications with primary focus to aerial and surface autonomous robots in a generic “data gathering or communication” scenarios. The experimental facilities enable both the indoor flight experimentation in a synthetic VICON environment and the outdoor flight.
A successful candidate should possess strong skills in cross-disciplinary academic fields and systems integration, including expertise in one or more of the following areas: flight control systems, computer systems engineering, embedded control, and/or sensing and perception systems.
References
Dobrokhodov V, Jones, K, Dillard C, Kaminer I: “Aqua-Quad-solar powered, long endurance, hybrid mobile vehicle for persistent surface and underwater reconnaissance, part II-onboard intelligence.” in Proceedings of OCEANS 2016 MTS/IEEE, Monterey, CA, September, 2016
Camacho N, Dobrokhodov V, et al: “Cooperative Autonomy of Multiple Solar-Powered Thermaling Gliders.” Proceedings of IFAC world congress 2014, Cape Town, South Africa, August 24-29, 2014
Andersson, K, Kaminer I, Dobrokhodov V, Cichella V: “Thermal centering control for autonomous soaring; stability analysis and flight test results.” Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 35(3): 963-975, 2012
Autonomous system; Mission planning; Guidance, navigation, and control; Cooperative control; Information exchange; Optimal control; Energy harvesting; Real-time software development; Robotics; Embedded systems; Simulink/Python/C++/ROS;