Melkior Ornik

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Education

• Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, 2017
• M.S., Mathematics and Statistics, Queen's University, 2013
• B.S., Mathematics, University of Zagreb, 2011

Academic Positions

• Affiliate, Discovery Partners Institute, 2020-Present
• Research Associate, University of Texas at Austin, 2018
• Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas at Austin, 2017 - 2018

Research Interests

• Autonomous systems
• Control of systems operating in complex, uncertain, or changing environments
• Safety-critical control
• Learning methods in control

Selected Articles in Journals

• J.-B. Bouvier, S. P. Nandanoori, M. Ornik. "Losing control of your linear network? Try resilience theory." IEEE Transactions on Control of Networked Systems, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/TCNS.2024.3431409
• H. El-Kebir, A. Pirosmanishvili, M. Ornik. "Online guaranteed reachable set approximation for systems with changed dynamics and control authority." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 69(2), pp. 726-740, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2023.3275495
• M. O. Karabag, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Identity concealment games: How I learned to stop revealing and love the coincidences." Automatica, 161, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.automatica.2023.111482
• H. El-Kebir, R. Berlin, J. Bentsman, M. Ornik. "Viability under degraded control authority." IEEE Control Systems Letters, pp. 3765-3770, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/LCSYS.2023.3342059
• Y. Wang, M. Ornik, R. Dong. "Connection of optimal stopping time to s-t cut problems on trees." IEEE Control Systems Letters, pp. 3729-3734, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/LCSYS.2023.3342562
• J.-B. Bouvier, K. Xu, M. Ornik. "Quantitative resilience of generalized integrators." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 68(12), pp. 7591-7600, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2023.3286942
• F. Nawaz, M. Ornik. "Multiagent, multitarget path planning in Markov decision processes." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 68(12), pp. 7560-7574, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2023.3286807
• K. Garg, C. Dawson, K. Xu, M. Ornik, C. Fan. "Model-free neural fault detection and isolation for safe control." IEEE Control Systems Letters, 7, pp. 3169-3174, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/LCSYS.2023.3302768
• F. Blahoudek, P. Novotny, M. Ornik, P. Thangeda, U. Topcu. "Efficient strategy synthesis for MDPs with resource constraints." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 68(8), 4586-4601, pp. 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2022.3209612
• M. O. Karabag, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Exploiting partial observability for optimal deception." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 68(7), pp. 4443-4450, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2022.3209959
• M. Vora, P. Thangeda, M. N. Grussing, M. Ornik. "Welfare maximization algorithm for solving budget-constrained multi-component POMDPs." IEEE Control Systems Letters, 7, pp. 1736-1741, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/LCSYS.2023.3280080
• T. Shafa, M. Ornik. "Reachability of nonlinear systems with unknown dynamics." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 68(4), pp. 2407-2414, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2022.3170855
• J.-B. Bouvier, M. Ornik. "Resilience of linear systems to partial loss of control authority." Automatica, 152, 2023. DOI: 10.1016/j.automatica.2023.110985
• P. Thangeda, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Expedited online learning with spatial side information." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 68(3), pp. 1479-1491, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2022.3153278
• J.-B. Bouvier, M. Ornik. "Designing resilient linear systems." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 67(9), pp. 4832-4837, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2022.3163242
• J.-B. Bouvier, M. Ornik. "The maximax minimax quotient theorem." Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, 192, pp. 1084-1101, 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10957-022-02008-z
• M. O. Karabag, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Deception in supervisory control." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 67(2), pp. 738-753, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2021.3057991
• H. Chen, M. Ornik, K. Ho. "Space exploration architecture and design framework for commercialization." Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 59(2), pp. 538-551, 2022. DOI: 10.2514/1.A35077
• Z. Dai, K. Xu, M. Ornik. "Repulsion-based p-dispersion with distance constraints in non-convex polygons." Annals of Operations Research, 307, pp. 67-91, 2021. DOI: 10.1007/s10479-021-04281-z
• M. Ornik. "Comment on "TVOR: Finding Discrete Total Variation Outliers Among Histograms"." IEEE Access, 9, pp. 78586-78593, 2021. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3082900
• M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Learning and planning for time-varying MDPs using maximum likelihood estimation." Journal of Machine Learning Research, 22(35), pp. 1-40, 2021.
• M. Ornik, S. Carr, A. Israel, U. Topcu. "Control-oriented learning on the fly." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 65(11), pp. 4800-4807, 2020. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2019.2963293
• Y. Savas, M. Ornik, M. Cubuktepe, M. O. Karabag, U. Topcu. "Entropy maximization for Markov decision processes under temporal logic constraints." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 65(4), pp. 1552-1567, 2020. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2019.2922583
• M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "Chattering in the reach control problem." Automatica, 89, pp. 201-211, 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.automatica.2017.11.008
• M. E. Broucke, M. Ornik, A. Mansouri. "A topological obstruction in a control problem." Systems & Control Letters, 108, pp. 71-79, 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.sysconle.2017.08.005
• M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "Characterization of a topological obstruction to reach control by continuous state feedback." Mathematics of Control, Signals, and Systems, 29(2), 2017. DOI: 10.1007/s00498-017-0192-y
• M. Moarref, M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "An obstruction to solvability of the reach control problem using affine feedback." Automatica, 71, pp. 229-236, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.automatica.2016.04.033

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• W. Chang, S. Hilgenfeldt, S. M. Salapaka, M. West, S. Eggl, M. Ornik, T. Bretl, P. G. Mehta, J. M. Rojas, G. Schaer. "Computational tools for dynamics and controls: Developing computational literacy for engineering students." Accepted to ASEE Annual Conference, 2025.
• J. Bullock, L. Song, G. Puthumanaillam, Y. Li, S. Cheng, M. Ornik, S. Mitra, N. Hovakimyan. "Verification of a collision avoidance controller for a lift + cruise vehicle." Accepted to AIAA SciTech Forum, 2025.
• Y. Meng, R. Zhou, M. Ornik, J. Liu. "Koopman-based learning of infinitesimal generators without operator logarithm." Accepted to 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2024.
• R. Padmanabhan, C. Bakker, S. A. Dinkar, M. Ornik. "How much reserve fuel: Quantifying the maximal energy cost of system disturbances." Accepted to 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2024.
• G. Puthumanaillam, M. Vora, M. Ornik. "ComTraQ-MPC: Meta-trained DQN-MPC integration for trajectory tracking with limited active localization updates." IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 13592-13598, 2024.
• Y. Meng, H. Li, M. Ornik, X. Li. "Koopman-based data-driven techniques for adaptive cruise control system identification." 27th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2024.
• E. Fernandez Bravo, M. Ornik, J. T. Allison. "Numerical estimation of bidirectional plant-control design coupling in control co-design." ASME 2024 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference - 50th Design Automation Conference, 2024.
• H. El-Kebir, R. Berlin, J. Bentsman, M. Ornik. "Viabilizability of control signals under control authority degradation." 22nd European Control Conference, 2024. DOI: 10.23919/ECC64448.2024.10591049
• G. Puthumanaillam, X. Liu, N. Mehr, M. Ornik. "Weathering ongoing uncertainty: Learning and planning in a time-varying partially observable environment." IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 4612-4618, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10610954
• H. El-Kebir, M. Ornik , Y. K. Nakka, C. Choi, A. Rahmani. "Robust detection and identification of simultaneous sensor and actuator faults." IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/AERO58975.2024.10521243
• G. Puthumanaillam, M. Vora, T. Shafa, Y. Li, M. Ornik, S. Mitra. "Assured collision avoidance for learned controllers: A case study of ACAS Xu." AIAA SciTech Forum, 2024. DOI: 10.2514/6.2024-1168
• G. Puthumanaillam, Y. Mamik, M. Ornik. "Online learning and planning in time-varying environments: An aircraft case study." AIAA SciTech Forum, 2024. DOI: 10.2514/6.2024-0109
• P. Thangeda, A. Goel, E. L. Tevere, Y. Zhu, E. Kramer, A. Daca, H. Nayar, K. Hauser, M. Ornik. "Learning and autonomy for extraterrestrial terrain sampling: An experience report from OWLAT deployment." AIAA SciTech Forum, 2024. DOI: 10.2514/6.2024-1962
• T. Shafa, R. Dong, M. Ornik. "Identifying single-input linear system dynamics from reachable sets." 62nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 3527-3532, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/CDC49753.2023.10384274
• K. Jagdale, Z. S. Khan, M. Menendez, M. Ornik. "Optimal planning on a single-route transit system with modular buses." 26th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, pp. 3046-3051, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/ITSC57777.2023.10422702
• H. El-Kebir, J. Bentsman, M. Ornik. "Lodestar: an integrated embedded real-time control engine." 7th IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications, pp. 886-891, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/CCTA54093.2023.10252952
• Y. Zhu, P. Thangeda, M. Ornik, K. Hauser. "Few-shot adaptation for manipulating granular materials under domain shift." Robotics: Science and Systems, 2023. (acceptance rate: 31%) DOI: 10.15607/RSS.2023.XIX.048
• X. Duan, N. Baharisangari, R. Yan, Z. Xu, M. Ornik. "On a notion of resilience for Markov decision processes with reachability objectives." 22nd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control, pp. 12083-12088, 2023. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2023.10.318
• H. El-Kebir, J. Bentsman, M. Ornik. "Robustly linearized model predictive control for nonlinear infinite-dimensional systems." 22nd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control, pp. 9660-9665, 2023. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2023.10.105
• K. Jagdale, M. Ornik. "Optimal routing of modular agents on a graph." IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/IV55152.2023.10186663
• T. Shafa, M. Ornik. "Maximal ellipsoid method for guaranteed reachability of unknown fully actuated systems." 61st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 5002-5007, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/CDC51059.2022.9992407
• P. Thangeda, M. Ornik. "Adaptive sampling site selection for robotic exploration in unknown environments." IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 4120-4125, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/IROS47612.2022.9982113
• A. Dey, M. Ornik. "Post-disaster repair crew assignment optimization using minimum latency." 8th IEEE International Smart Cities Conference, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/ISC255366.2022.9922070
• M. Ornik, J.-B. Bouvier. "Assured system-level resilience for guaranteed disaster response." 8th IEEE International Smart Cities Conference, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/ISC255366.2022.9922438
• J.-B. Bouvier, H. Panag, R. Woollands, M. Ornik. "Resilience of orbital inspections to partial loss of control authority of the chaser satellite." AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, 2022.
• J.-B. Bouvier, M. Ornik. "Quantitative resilience of linear systems." 20th European Control Conference, pp. 477-482, 2022. DOI: 10.23919/ECC55457.2022.9838147
• M. Ornik. "Deceptive trajectory imitation using affine feedback." American Control Conference, pp. 5211-5216, 2022. DOI: 10.23919/ACC53348.2022.9867275
• J.-B. Bouvier, S. P. Nandanoori, M. Ornik, S. Kundu. "Distributed transient safety verification via robust control invariant sets: A microgrid application." American Control Conference, pp. 2202-2207, 2022. DOI: 10.23919/ACC53348.2022.9867323
• F. Blahoudek, M. Cubuktepe, P. Novotny, M. Ornik, P. Thangeda, U. Topcu. "Fuel in Markov decision processes (FiMDP): A practical approach to consumption." Formal Methods, pp. 640-656, 2021. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-90870-6_34 (acceptance rate: 26%)
• H. El-Kebir, T. Shafa, A. Purushottam, M. Ornik, A. Soylemezoglu. "High-frequency vibration reduction for unmanned ground vehicles on unstructured terrain." 8th International Conference on Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems, pp. 74-92, 2021. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-98260-7_5
• W. Zheng, P. Thangeda, Y. Savas, M. Ornik. "Optimal routing in stochastic networks with reliability guarantees." 24th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, pp. 3521-3526, 2021. DOI: 10.1109/ITSC48978.2021.9564444
• J.-B. Bouvier, K. Xu, M. Ornik. "Quantitative resilience of linear driftless systems." SIAM Conference on Control and Its Applications, pp. 32-39, 2021. DOI: 10.1137/1.9781611976847.5
• H. El-Kebir, M. Ornik. "Online inner approximation of reachable sets of nonlinear systems with diminished control authority." SIAM Conference on Control and Its Applications, pp. 9-16, 2021. DOI: 10.1137/1.9781611976847.2
• M. Ornik. "Measuring target predictability for optimal environment design." 59th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 5023-5028, 2020. DOI: 10.1109/CDC42340.2020.9304082
• M. Ornik. "Guaranteed reachability for systems with unknown dynamics." 59th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 2756-2761, 2020. DOI: 10.1109/CDC42340.2020.9304326
• F. Nawaz, M. Ornik. "Explorative probabilistic planning with unknown target locations." 59th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 2732-2737, 2020. DOI: 10.1109/CDC42340.2020.9304481
• P. Thangeda, M. Ornik. "PROTRIP: Probabilistic risk-aware optimal transit planner." 23rd IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2020. DOI: 10.1109/ITSC45102.2020.9294500
• F. Blahoudek, P. Novotny, M. Ornik, P. Thangeda, U. Topcu. "Qualitative controller synthesis for consumption Markov decision processes." 32nd International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, part II, pp. 421-447, 2020. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-53291-8_22 (acceptance rate: 27%)
• J.-B. Bouvier, M. Ornik. "Resilient reachability for linear systems." 21st IFAC World Congress, pp. 4409-4414, 2020. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.372
• P. Thangeda, M. Ornik. "Safety-guaranteed, accelerated learning in MDPs with local side information." American Control Conference, pp. 1099-1105, 2020. DOI: 10.23919/ACC45564.2020.9147372
• H. El-Kebir, M. Ornik. "In-flight air density estimation and prediction for hypersonic flight vehicles." 23rd AIAA International Space Planes and Hypersonics Systems and Technologies Conference, 2020. DOI: 10.2514/6.2020-2412
• Y. Savas, V. Gupta, M. Ornik, L. J. Ratliff, U. Topcu. "Incentive design for temporal logic objectives." 58th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 2251-2258, 2019. DOI: 10.1109/CDC40024.2019.9029287
• M. O. Karabag, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Optimal deceptive and reference policies for supervisory control." 58th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 1323-1330, 2019. DOI: 10.1109/CDC40024.2019.9029607
• H. Chen, M. Ornik, K. Ho. "Incentive design for commercial participation in space logistics infrastructure development and deployment." 70th International Astronautical Congress, 2019.
• Z. Xu, M. Ornik, A. A. Julius, U. Topcu. "Information-guided temporal logic inference with prior knowledge." American Control Conference, pp. 1891-1897, 2019. DOI: 10.23919/ACC.2019.8815145
• M. O. Karabag, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Least inferable policies for Markov decision processes." American Control Conference, pp. 1224-1231, 2019. DOI: 10.23919/ACC.2019.8815129
• M. Ornik, S. Carr, A. Israel, U. Topcu. "Myopic control of systems with unknown dynamics." American Control Conference, pp. 1064-1071, 2019. DOI: 10.23919/ACC.2019.8814482
• M. Ornik, J. Fu, N. T. Lauffer, W. K. Perera, M. Alshiekh, M. Ono, U. Topcu. "Expedited learning in MDPs with side information." 57th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 1941-1948, 2018. DOI: 10.1109/CDC.2018.8619134
• M. Ornik, M. S. Moura, A. Peplowski, M. Broucke. "Adaptive cruise control design using reach control." 21st IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, pp. 111-116, 2018. DOI: 10.1109/ITSC.2018.8569963
• Y. Savas, M. Ornik, M. Cubuktepe, U. Topcu. "Entropy maximization for constrained Markov decision processes." 56th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2018. DOI: 10.1109/ALLERTON.2018.8636066
• M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Deception in optimal control." 56th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2018. DOI: 10.1109/ALLERTON.2018.8635871
• M. Bucic, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Graph-based controller synthesis for safety-constrained, resilient systems." 56th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2018. DOI: 10.1109/ALLERTON.2018.8635905
• D. Ge, M. Ornik, U. Topcu. "Robust myopic control for systems with imperfect observations." AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, pp. 3057-3072, 2018.
• P. Mercader, M. Ornik, P.-O. Gutman, I. Ioslovich. "Optimal signal timing for multi-phase intersections." 15th IFAC Symposium on Control in Transportation Systems, pp. 476-481, 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2018.07.078
• M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "A graph-theoretic approach to the reach control problem." 56th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 4952-4957, 2017. DOI: 10.1109/CDC.2017.8264392
• M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "A nerve-theoretic result on the problem of a topological obstruction in reach control." 56th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 3009-3014, 2017. DOI: 10.1109/CDC.2017.8264097
• M. Ornik, M. Moarref, M. E. Broucke. "An automated parallel parking strategy using reach control theory." 20th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control, pp. 9419-9424, 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2017.08.1699
• M. Ornik, A. C. Sniderman, M. E. Broucke, G. M. T. D’Eleuterio. "Pattern identification in distributed systems." 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 6895-6900, 2016. DOI: 10.1109/CDC.2016.7799331
• M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "Characterizing equilibria in reach control under affine feedback." 10th IFAC Symposium on Nonlinear Control Systems, pp. 1078-1083, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.10.311
• M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "A topological obstruction to reach control by continuous state feedback." 54th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 2258-2263, 2015. DOI: 10.1109/CDC.2015.7402543
• M. Ornik, M. E. Broucke. "On a topological obstruction in the reach control problem." AMMCS-CAIMS Congress, pp. 677-687, 2015. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-30379-6

Abstracts (in print or accepted)

• A. N. Sivakumar, P. Thangeda, Y. Fang, M. V. Gasparino, J. Cuaran, M. Ornik, G. Chowdhary. "Learning to Turn: Diffusion imitation for robust row switching in under-canopy robots." 40th Anniversary of the IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2024.

Journal Editorships

• Associate Editor, Special section "Formal Verification and Synthesis of Cyber-Physical Systems" of IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems, 2023
• Associate Managing Editor, IEEE Smart Cities Newsletter, 2022 - 2023

Teaching Honors

• Included on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students (Fall 2023)
• Included on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students (Fall 2022)
• Included on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students (Spring 2020)
• Included on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students (Spring 2019)