Garrett Jares

Jillian Bennett defends Masters Thesis

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Jillian Bennett successfully defended her M.S. thesis on June 11th, 2025.  Jill has been with VSCL since her senior year in Spring 2023 and is highly engaged in control theory, and flight testing. The title of her thesis is: Nonlinear Adaptive Multiple Time Scale Stability Analysis For An Arbitrary Number Of Time Scales

 Multiple time scale systems are a set of subsystems that are dependent on each other yet have a large separation in the time which the dynamics progress. Systems of this sort are often simplified by dismissing the dependencies between vehicle states, however, the true dynamics get lost and are important to the stability of the system. Additionally, true systems have uncertain plant dynamics and disturbances that can cause instability. Therefore, a method of control must be used to account for uncertainties. Adaptive control has been shown to counteract these additional sources of motion. A combination of adaptive control and multiple time scale control for nonlinear systems is applicable to and necessary for the systems mentioned above and has been demonstrated in a method called [K]Control of Adaptive Multiple Time Scale Systems (KAMS), yet only accounts for two time scale systems. This work extends the theory and stability proof of KAMS to account for a system with any number of time scales. It also further analyzes the limitations to the time scale separation parameter size of a two and three time scale system.

Jill developed and conducted outstanding theory for nonlinear time scale systems, and the work will continue. Jill is doing a summer grad internship with Naval Research Laboratory to flight test the nonlinear multiple time scale control laws, and then she is staying with VSCL and continuing on to the Ph.D.  Very glad to have you for another degree Jill!

Jill’s research is supported by the Office of Naval Research on the project Novel Multiple Time Scale Adaptive Control for Uncertain Nonlinear Dynamical Systems. Jill’s is the 64th graduate degree completed that Dr. John Valasek has advised.

Garrett Jares Defends Ph.D. Dissertation on Thursday, 1 December 2022

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Garrett Jares (B.S. Computer Science, Texas A&M University) successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Control Acquisition Attack of Feedback Control System by False Data Injection”.   Garrett is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support his research in Aerospace Cybersecurity.  Garrett has accepted a position as a Research Engineer with Southwest Research Institute. He is currently a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Cybersecurity Working Group, and his main research interests include cybersecurity and cryptography applied to air and space systems.  Congratulations Garrett, all of VSCL is very proud of you and your accomplishments!

VSCL Alumnus Bowers Awarded Northrop Grumman Fellow

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Roshawn Bowers ’03 & ’05, a former student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been awarded a Northrop Grumman Fellow for Vehicle Management Systems and Flight Control Systems Integration. She is also co-sponsoring a new program at Northrop Grumman that focuses on recruiting and retaining women in senior technical roles. Bowers is currently an engineering manager who leads the development of advanced engineering systems for Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems in San Diego, California.

“I am very fortunate to have had great teachers and mentors to help me along the way,” said Bowers. “I feel like I got a first-class education at Texas A&M, and I don’t believe any other university could have prepared me better for my career.”

As an undergraduate and graduate student, Bowers conducted research in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory with Dr. John Valasek, professor in the aerospace engineering department. She researched relative navigation systems and assisted with flight testing of an unmanned powered parachute vehicle for NASA’s X-38 project. At the conclusion of her graduate degree, she defended her Master of Science thesis titled “Estimation algorithm for autonomous aerial refueling utilizing a vision based relative navigation system” in April 2005 and then joined Northrop Grumman.

Previously, Bowers had done co-op tours at Lockheed Martin Space Operations in Houston on the International Space Station Extravehicular Activity Test Team and the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems team. She also did a co-op on the F-16 Block 60 program for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth, Texas.

While in school at Texas A&M, Bowers researched the Automatic Carrier Landing System as a member of the Engineering Scholars Program and received the Texas A&M Graduate Merit Fellowship and the Isadore Roosth ’33 Engineering Scholarship. She was the chairman of Sigma Gamma Tau, the Aerospace Engineering Honor Society, and a member of Phi Eta Sigma, the Freshman Honor Society. Bowers participated in the Texas A&M Engineering High School Conference, Help One Student To Succeed (HOSTS), and Aggie Replant.

The official College of Engineering press release can be found here.

Clouatre, Valasek, Balas, and Gehlot Publish “Linear Quantum State Observers”

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On September 28, 2022, Maison Clouatre and John Valasek of VSCL, in tandem with Mark Balas of the Texas A&M Mechanical Engineering Department and Vinod Gehlot of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, published the paper “Linear Quantum State Observers” in IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering. This paper develops fundamental results for using linear observers to infer an unknown state of a quantum dynamical system. The theoretical contributions of the article are three-fold:

  1. A quantum observability test is provided in terms of two “quantum observability matrices”. This test is shown to be more computationally efficient than testing the Kalman observability matrix of  the same quantum system.
  2. A canonical quantum state observer is derived, which guarantees that the observer error tends to the unobservable space of any quantum system with positive operator valued measure (POVM) output.
  3. The canonical observer preserves the Hermiticity of the observer’s state. This allows one to efficiently project the observer’s state onto the set of valid quantum density matrices while
    retaining the convergence rate of the observer.

This publication is part of VSCL’s ongoing work in the area of control for quantum information systems. The early access version of the article can be viewed on IEEE’s website: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9904875.

 

Graduate Student Maison Clouatre awarded National Defense Science Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSFGR)

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Maison ClouatreMaison Clouatre, a graduate student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has received two prestigious awards, the 2022 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship and the 2022 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP).  Clouatre selected the NDSEG Fellowship, which is awarded annually to students in recognition of their academic excellence and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) achievements.  Awardees receive full tuition and coverage for all mandatory fees for up to three years at any accredited U.S. college or university that provides advanced degrees in science and engineering, as well as a monthly stipend of $3,400.

Clouatre, a Ph.D. student, graduated in May 2022 with a double major in electrical engineering and mathematics from Mercer University.  He is both a Goldwater Scholar and Stamps Scholar, and previously held visiting research positions in the Electronic Systems (ELSYS) Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Clouatre is co-advised by professor John Valasek in the aerospace engineering department, and professor Mark Balas in the mechanical engineering department.  He first experienced engineering at Texas A&M University as an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student in 2019, working with Valasek in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory (VSCL).  Clouatre says “It is an overwhelming honor to receive the support of both NSF GRFP and DoD NDSEG.  However, without Professor Valasek, who has persistently invested in me since I was a freshman in college, these awards would not be possible.  His most recent investment was introducing me to Professor Balas—a kind mentor and truly keen mind.  After carefully considering both awards, I zealously look forward to using the NDSEG fellowship to innovate alongside Valasek and Balas as a graduate student at Texas A&M University.”

Clouatre’s research interests lie at the intersection of control theory, optimization, and learning, and he ventures to use these techniques to engineer advanced quantum information devices.  His NDSEG application identified a major hurdle for moving beyond Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices: quantum bits which are strongly coupled with their environment.  In such regimes, a quantum bit dissipates quantum information into its environment and limits the lifetime of data stored in the qubit’s state.  Clouatre will use the NDSEG fellowship to work with Professors Valasek and Balas to develop new quantum control schemes which mitigate environmental couplings and lead to more robust quantum information units.

Valasek says that Clouatre “Maison is an exceptional person, and student, that personifies ‘hard work really does pay off’.  He brings tremendous energy and enthusiasm to learning and research, and especially elevates the experience of everyone around him.  I enjoyed working with him very much during REU, and now that he is attending TAMU for his doctorate I get to work with him every day.  We are very fortunate to have him in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory.”

VSCL Alumnus Mia Brown Accepts Position at NASA Johnson Space Center

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VSCL Alumnus Mia Brown ’20 has accepted a new position as a Flight Controller at NASA Johnson Space Center. Mia will be working as a flight controller in mission control for the Robotics Team (ROBO). The job of a flight controller in mission control is to plan and help execute missions to/from the International Space Station (ISS). As part of team ROBO, Mia will work with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to operate the robotic arm and primarily focus on fixing things on the outside of the ISS, capturing/releasing vehicles that come aboard the space station, and also assist with crew extravehicular activity (EVA) missions.

Mia is a graduate of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering with a major in Computer Engineering. She started working with VSCL in the Spring of 2017, with her major roles including working in the Texas A&M University Engineering Flight Simulator and helping to develop a means for evaluating human factors aspects for Head Mounted Displays (HMD) for Enhanced Vision System technologies. Previously, Mia worked for Dell Technologies as a Security Analyst where she helped to manage the security of Dell’s information.

VSCL Hosts Dr. Robert Abrose

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VSCL hosted Dr. Robert Abrose, Professor in the Texas A&M Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director for Space and Robotics at the Bush Combat Development Complex, at the Texas A&M University UAS Flight Testing Facility at RELLIS Campus. Dr. Ambrose met with Lab Director Dr. John Valasek and several VSCL Graduate Students. Dr. Ambrose and VSCL discussed UAS autonomy research and flight testing capabilities to identify points for potential  collaboration with the Bush Combat Development Complex.

VSCL Hosts Army Research Laboratory

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VSCL hosted Dr. Steve Nogar, Research Engineer at the Army Research Laboratory, at the Texas A&M University UAS Flight Testing Facility at RELLIS Campus.  Dr. Nogar met with VSCL lab director Dr. John Valasek and VSCL graduate students Kameron Eves, Garrett Jares, Ian Holmes, Esteban Gomez, and Chris Leshikar about the autonomous control of UAS research that VSCL conducts at the flight testing facility and toured the grounds.

VSCL Students Graduate with M.S., M.Eng., and B.S. Degrees

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VSCL graduate student Ritwik Bera has graduated with his Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Ritwik successfully defended his thesis “A Modular Framework for Training Autonomous Systems via Human Interaction” in December 2021. He is now working with Zoox in Foster CIty, CA as a Software Engineer in the Planning and Control department working on trajectory generation algorithms. Ritwik joined VSCL in 2019 after having spent a summer working with the lab in 2017 and has focused much of his work on human-in-the-loop learning to train autonomous systems to perform various tasks. Ritwik has also led the efforts for the Enhancing the Cycle-of-Learning for Autonomous Systems to Facilitate Human-Agent Teaming project.

 

 

 

VSCL graduate student Shelby Hackett has graduated with her Master of Engineering in Aerospace Engineering. Shelby will be going to work for Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA where she will be a part of the guidance, navigation, and control systems group and will aid in various space missions. Shelby has been a member of VSCL since Fall 2020 and has worked on a number of projects including Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents. She has also served as a Teaching Assistant for AERO 321: Dynamics of Aerospace Vehicles and aided undergraduate students in learning aircraft stability and control.

 

 

 

 

VSCL graduate student Blake Krpec has graduated with his Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Blake successfully defended his thesis “Vision-Based Marker-Less Landing of a UAS On a Moving Ground Vehicle” in March 2022. He is now working as an Engineer in the Applied Sensing Department for Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, TX. Blake began working with VSCL during the fall semester of his sophomore year (Fall 2016) as an undergraduate research assistant and began working on his masters in August 2019. Blake was selected to be a Journeyman Fellow for the Army Research Lab and his main research interests include computer vision, controls using computer vision, and traditional controls applied to unmanned air systems

 

 

 

VSCL undergraduate research assistant Dakota Kridler has graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Dakota will be working as a Flight Test & Systems Engineer for Albers Aerospace in McKinney, TX. He has been working with VSCL since January 2019 and has worked to develop the air vehicle autonomy on the Agile Technology Development (ATD) – Air-Ground Coordinated Teaming project. Dakota is also a US Army veteran who served from 2012 to 2017 as an Infantryman during the Inherent Resolve Campaign.

 

 

 

 

VSCL undergraduate research assistant Luke Moy has graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Luke will be working as an R&D Engineer 1 at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Luke has been a member of VSCL since August 2020 and has been involved in much of the flight testing operations at RELLIS Campus. Luke has also been an integral part of the Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents project.

VSCL Students Selected for Summer 2022 Internships

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Many students of the Texas A&M Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory have been selected for offsite internships for the Summer of 2022. These internships show VSCL student representation at a variety of companies and institutions across the United States. Students which have been selected for internships in the Summer of 2022 include:

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant Connor Atkins has been selected for a Summer 2022 internship with Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM. Connor will be working as a Graduate Student Intern and assisting with documentation/procedure and testing of new systems within the physics lab. Connor has been a member of VSCL since 2018 and has worked on numerous projects. Currently, he is working with the flight testing group at the RELLIS Campus. Having experience with both the software and hardware sides of the vehicles, he performs preflight maintenance and aids in the testing of a variety of UAS that VSCL handles.

 

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Alex Gross has been selected for a Summer 2022 internship at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. Alex will be working as a Research & Development Intern focusing on applying machine learning to hypersonic applications. Alex is a Junior and has been a member of VSCL since 2020. He has focused his research on UAS autonomous guidance and landing, embedded systems, and user-interface integration.

 

 

 

 

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and Ph.D Student Hannah Lehman has been selected for a Summer 2022 research internship at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. Hannah has been working as a Year-Round Research & Development Intern since 2020, with a principal focus of applying machine learning to defense vehicles. Hannah started working with VSCL as an undergraduate in the Spring of 2017, with her major roles including managing the flight simulator lab and performing research into reinforcement learning for use onboard aircraft. Hannah graduated with her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering in May 2020 and and continued with VSCL to pursue her Ph.D.

 

 

 

 

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and M.S. Student Cassie-Kay McQuinn has been selected for a Summer 2022 research internship at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. Cassie will be a Research and Development Intern with a focus of applying autonomy solutions to advance the national security mission. Cassie has been a member of VSCL since Spring 2021 and joined as a M.S. student in the Spring 2022 semester. Cassie-Kay’s main interests include flight test engineering, aircraft dynamics, and system identification.

 

 

 

 

 

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant Md Nazmus Sunbeam has been selected for a Summer 2022 internship with the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, MD. Sunbeam will be working as a Summer Student Researcher with the Human Research and Engineering Directorate developing algorithms and extensions for Cycle-of-Learning. Cycle-of-Learning is a framework for quick training of AI agents through human interaction. Sunbeam has been a member of VSCL: since August 2021. His research has focused on advancing the Cycle-of-Learning by investigating the use of similarity metrics.

 

 

 

 

 

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Carla Zaramella has been selected for a Summer 2022 internship at Raytheon Technologies in Tewksbury MA. Carla will be working as a Whole Life Program – Systems Engineering Intern in RTX Missiles and Defense with a team to ensure that hardware and systems are effective, reliable and maintainable. Carla is a Sophomore and has been a member of VSCL since January of 2022 and has been involved in flight testing and supporting research for system identification.