VSCL is proud to welcome four new graduate research assistants:
Ritwik Bera is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. He graduated with the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2018. During his undergraduate studies, Ritwik worked on modelling multi-agent systems using differential game theory. He also interned at VSCL in 2017, working on two time-scale control systems at the time. At VSCL, Ritwik works on human-in-the-loop learning to train autonomous systems to perform various tasks. Ritwik has been primarily focused on making human-in-the-loop learning scalable for real-time learning on hardware as well as developing unsupervised learning techniques to help agents learn macro-behaviors from human demonstrations.
Kameron Eves is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. He graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) with a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering. At BYU, Kameron worked in the Multiple Agent Intelligent Coordination and Control (MAGICC) laboratory. As part of this research, Kameron helped to develop a ground based optical tracking and imaging system capable of estimating an aircraft’s pose. In the VSCL, Kameron will work to develop the capabilities necessary for autonomous reconnaissance in military settings. This project is a partnership with the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) at Carnegie Mellon University. Kameron’s research interests include reinforcement learning, autonomous control, and vehicle dynamics.
Blake Krpec is a Masters of Science student in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory. He has been working with his advisor, Dr. John Valasek, since the fall semester of his sophomore year (Fall 2016) as an undergraduate research assistant. During this time he assisted in flight test validation of UAS (unmanned air systems), as well as the integration of various sensors and on board computers. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University in May 2019 and began working on his masters in August 2019. In June of 2019, Blake was selected to be a Journeyman Fellow for the Army Research Lab. The work for this fellowship includes using computer vision control techniques to enable UAS to autonomously detect and navigate relative to the detected UAS. Blake’s main research interests include computer vision, controls using computer vision, and traditional controls applied to unmanned air systems.
Morgan Wood is an M.S. student in the aerospace engineering department. He earned the Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. While in school, he studied engineering abroad at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, soloed in a Schweizer H300 helicopter at the University of North Dakota, and conducted research for BAE Systems as the lead structural designer to fabricate and employ a working exoskeleton for the Air Force Research Laboratory Rapid Reaction Challenge at Kirtland Air Force Base, NM. After graduation in 2011, Morgan was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army and served for eight years in Army Aviation as an AH-64D Apache Helicopter aviator.