Hovakimyan to direct new Intelligent Robotics Lab

CSL Professor Naira Hovakimyan, a member of the Mechanical Science and Engineering faculty, will be the Director of a new Intelligent Robotics Lab that will focus on creating a new generation of smart UAVs and robots that can seamlessly interact with humans. The Lab is an interdisciplinary initiative of the Coordinated Science Laboratory and will be located in the CSL Studio in the North Parking Deck.

In addition to being a University Scholar and Schaller Faculty Scholar, Hovakimyan is a leading expert in the field of robust adaptive control and estimation and networks of autonomous systems. Her L1 adaptive controller, which has been tested by NASA on unmanned aerial vehicles, recently received attention from the press after successful tests on a Learjet at Edwards Air Force Base the first step to deploying the technology on commercial manned aircraft.
 
Tim Bretl, associate professor of Aerospace Engineering, will act as Associate Director. The effort, which began in 2011, was spearheaded by Geir Dullerud, a professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering and Director of the Decision & Control group at CSL.

The Lab will bring together more than a dozen faculty members from Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Science and Engineering and the social sciences. Researchers will work in an interdisciplinary way on technical and social challenges involved with UAVs and other robots.

Under Naira’s leadership, researchers will work on everything from designing ways to navigate UAV swarms in GPS-denied environments to contributing to fundamental understandings of how humans and robots can interact safely and effectively while occupying shared spaces. Special emphasis will be placed on the development of robotic platforms for public safety, precision farming and infrastructure inspection. This class of algorithms require tight integration of feedback laws with image processing, data analytics and visual representation of the results through appropriate interfaces.