IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

Central New England Chapter

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Informal Discussion: 6:00 PM

Program: 6:30 PM

FLIGHT CONTROL EXPERIMENTS WITH MULTIPLE UAVS
IN UNCERTAIN AND DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENTS

Presented by

Jonathan P. How

Aerospace Controls Laboratory
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming vital warfare and homeland security platforms because they significantly reduce costs and the risk to human life while amplifying warfighter and first-responder capabilities. However, achieving all of these potential benefits requires that we develop new techniques to optimize the coordination of the team of UAVs, which is comprised of the coupled sub-problems of determining the team composition, allocating resources (task assignment), and optimizing the vehicle trajectories. These are all computationally intensive optimization problems that are further complicated by the uncertainty in the situational awareness of the dynamic environment, the computational limitations onboard the vehicles, and the intermittent asynchronous communication networks.

This talk with discuss Prof. Jonathan How's recent research in this area, with a particular focus on the robust distributed task and path planning algorithms that we have developed to address the uncertainty in the available information. The speaker will also present results on several multi-vehicle testbeds that have been developed to help transition these high-level planning algorithms to future missions. The talk will conclude with an illustration of how these technologies are being extended to other applications, including coordinated large-scale weather-tracking. See http://vertol.mit.edu/ for further details.

Prof. Jonathan P. How is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science (Aerospace Option) from the University of Toronto in 1987 and his S.M. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 1990 and 1993, respectively. He then studied for two years at MIT as a postdoctoral associate in charge of control design for the Middeck Active Control Experiment (MACE) that flew on-board the Space Shuttle Endeavour in March 1995. Prior to joining MIT in 2000, he worked for 5.5 years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. He has graduated a total of 19 Ph.D. (and 18 S.M.) students while at MIT and Stanford University on topics related to GPS, formation flying, advanced control, and trajectory optimization. Current research interests include using operations research tools such as mixed-integer programming to optimize the coordination and control of autonomous vehicles in dynamic uncertain environments. He was the recipient of the 2002 Institute of Navigation Burka Award for outstanding achievement in the preparation of papers contributing to the advancement of navigation and space guidance, is the Raymond L. Bisplinghoff Fellow for MIT Aero/Astro Department, is an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and a senior member of IEEE.

MEETING INFORMATION

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society will meet at Wellesley High School, 50 Rice Street, Wellesley, MA 02481, on Tuesday, November 14, 2006, at 6:00 PM for informal discussions and for the formal presentation between 6:30 and 7:30 PM. The group will have a no-host dinner afterwards at Bertucci's, 380 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA 02481, where more conversations can take place with the guest speaker. The meetings are open to the general public, and all are welcome at the dinner afterwards.

For more information, contact the chapter chair, Peter Meyer, at 781-334-0052 or Chair@Robotics-Boston.org or visit http://www.robotics-boston.org/

DIRECTIONS

From Route 128, take either Route 9 or Route 16 west. From the junction of Routes 9 and 16, follow Route 16 (Washington Street) west past the Wellesley Hills commuter rail station (within walking distance of the school, then turn left onto Rice Street. Wellesley High School is on the left. Parking is available in a lot just beyond the school.

For a Yahoo web map showing the location of Wellesley High School, go to the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/exqwb

The GPS coordinates for Rice St. in front of the entrance to the high school building are approximately as follows: N 42° 18.137', W 71° 16.811'.

The GPS coordinates for the parking lot in front of the entrance to Bertucci's are approximately as follows: N 42° 18.492', W 71° 16.691'.

For more information about our Section and Chapter, visit our web site: http://www.robotics-boston.org/