Cassie-Kay McQuinn graduated with her MS degree in aerospace engineering. Cassie is the 60th graduate student advised to completion of their degree by Dr. Valasek, and the title of her thesis is “Online Near-Real Time Open-Loop System Identification from Closed-Loop Flight Test Data”. This work is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Autonomous Air Mobility & Sensing (CAAMS) as one part of the project “Integration of System Theory with Machine Learning Tools for Data Driven System Identification”. Cassie investigated identifying state-space linear dynamic models generated onboard in near-real time, for vehicles with and without an active flight controller.
Cassie is continuing on to the PhD with VSCL, and her dissertation will be based upon work she has been conducting on STARS (Safe Trusted Autonomy for Responsible Spacecraft) during a year-round internship for the Air Force Research Laboratory.
