Current Students
Nathan Kimmel (Ph.D.)
Duncan Nicholson (M.S.)
Tomas Opazo (Ph.D.)
Jacob Reddington (M.S.)
Graduated Students
Junyi (Jenny) Geng, Ph.D. 2020. Control, Estimation, and Planning for Coordinated Transport of a Slung Load by a Team of Aerial Robots,Jenny is currently a Post-Doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tyler Rosenberger, MS 2020. An Open-Loop Trajectory Implementation for Free Fall to Powered Flight Transition for Multirotor Aircraft, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Tyler is currently working at Blue Origin.
Nathan Kimmel, MS 2019. A Method for the Exploitation of Microlift for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Nathan is working on his Ph.D. in the AVIA Lab.
Marc Volpe, MS 2019. Design, Development, and Field Testing of the GlacierHawk: an Unmanned Aerial System for Geoscience Data Retrieval, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Marc is currently working at CalSpan.
John Bird, Ph.D. 2019. Atmospherically Aware Aircraft Guidance using In Situ Observations, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. John is currently a Post-Doctoral researcher at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Nathan Depenbusch, Ph.D. 2018. Development and Field Testing of an Autonomous Soaring System, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Nate was lead controls engineer on the Vahana aircraft at Airbus A^3 and is now working at Archer (an Urban Air Mobility start-up).
Joseph Harkins, MS 2017. Automatic Controller Synthesis for a Reconfigurable UAV, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University.
Will Holmes, MS 2017. Vision-based Relative Deck State Estimation used with Tau-based Landings, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Will is currently working at Scientific Systems Inc., Woburn, MA.
Junyi Geng MS 2016. A Quasi-polar Local Occupancy Grid Approach for Vision-based Obstacle Avoidance, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University.
Anjan Chakrabarty, PhD 2014. Energy Aware Path Planning in Complex Four Dimensional Environments, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Anjan is a Research Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center.
Dmitriy Makovkin, MS 2014. Optimal Persistent Monitoring using Coordinated Soaring, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Dmitriy is currently working at Northrop Grumman.
ZuQun Li, MS 2014. Coordinated Transport of a Slung Load by a Team of Autonomous Rotorcraft, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. ZuQun is currently working at NASA Johnson Space Center.
Charlotte Gill, honors BS 2014. Charlotte's thesis won the 2014 Wolk Award for best undergraduate thesis in the Department of Aerospace Engineering.
Thanan Yomchinda, PhD 2013 (co-advised with Prof. Joseph F. Horn). Real Time Path Planning and Autonomous Control for Helicopter Autorotation, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University.
Shawn Daugherty, MS 2013. Improving Autonomous Soaring via Energy State Estimation and Extremum Seeking Control, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Shawn Daugherty is currently working at NAVAIR.
Zeljko Raic, MS 2013. Cerebral Spinal Fluid and Brain Tissue Segmentation in Hydrocephalic Patients via Three Dimensional Level Set Method, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University.
John Bird, MS 2013. Wind Estimation and Closed-loop Control of a Soaring Vehicle, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University.
Nicholas Grande, MS 2013. Safe Autonomous Flare and Landing during Autorotation through Wind Shear, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Nick is working at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island.
Kwok K. Cheng, MS 2013. Guided Exploration for Coordinated Autonomous Soaring Flight, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Kwok is working at Sikorsky Aircraft.
Benjamin L. Truskin, MS 2013. Vision-based Deck State Estimation for Autonomous Ship-board Landing, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University.
John F. Quindlen, MS, 2012. Low Cost Wind Sensing for Dynamic Soaring UAVs, [PDF] Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. John Quindlen completed his Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently working at Boeing in Huntington Beach, CA.
Nathan T. Depenbusch, M.S. 2011. Atmospheric Energy Harvesting for Small Uninhabited Aircraft by Gust Soaring [PDF]. Nate is currently a Ph.D. student working under my supervision.
Shane Tierney, M.S. 2010. Autorotation Path Planning using Backwards Reachable Sets and Optimal Control [PDF]. Shane is currently with RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA.
Anjan Chakrabarty, M.S. 2010. Flight Path Planning of UAV Based on Atmospheric Energy Harvesting [PDF]. Anjan is currently a Ph.D. student in my lab.
John F. Quindlen, Honors B.S. 2010. John's thesis won the 2010 Wolk Award for best undergraduate thesis in Aerospace Engineering. John is currently an M.S. student in my lab.
Sean Quinn Marlow, M.S. 2009. Local Terrain Mapping for Obstacle Avoidance using Monocular Vision [PDF]. Sean is currently a Ph.D. student in my lab.
Robert Urban, Honors B.S. 2008. Biomimetic Flight for Small Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles. Robert is currently at the Naval Air Warfare Weapons Center, Patuxent River, MD.
Sana Sarfraz, M.S. 2008. Stereo Vision for Autonomous Ground-Based Tracking of Migrating Raptors [PDF]. Sana is currently with Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, IA.
Jeffrey B. Corbets, M.S. 2008. Real-Time Trajectory Generation for Target Localization using Micro Air Vehicles [PDF]. Jeff is currently with Lockheed Martin (Palmdale).