Awards

Graduate Special Achievements

  • (7) National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship recipients
  • (6) National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) recipients
  • (1) Science, Mathematics & Research for Transformation Fellowship (SMART) recipient
  • (1) U.S. Army Research Laboratory (USARL) Research Associateship Program (RAP) recipient
  • (1) Caltech Space Challenge recipient
  • (1) Texas A&M University Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research – PhD Level
  • (1) Aerospace Engineering Department Graduate Research Excellence Award – PhD Level
  • (1) College of Engineering Outstanding Engineering Master of Science Graduate Student Award
  • (7) Texas A&M University Graduate Merit Fellowship Recipients
  • (2) Travel Award to Present at Professional Conference (IFAC)
  • (4) Graduate placers (two 1st , one 2nd, one 3rd) Texas A&M Student Research Week Competition
  • (7) Graduate placers (four 1st, two 2nd, two 3rd) Regional AIAA Student Paper Conferences

Undergraduate Special Achievements

  • (2) NASA Aeronautics Undergraduate Scholarship Recipients
  • (1) AIAA Spirit of Apollo Scholarship recipient
  • (1) University Scholar, highest undergraduate scholastic ranking at Texas A&M University
  • (2) Texas A&M University Undergraduate Research Fellows
  • (2) Texas A&M University Undergraduate Research Scholars
  • (1) Gathright Scholar, top Junior in the College of Engineering
  • (10) Texas A&M Undergraduate Engineering Honors Research Scholars
  • (9) Undergraduate placers (three 1st, four 2nd, five 3rd ) Regional AIAA Student Paper Conferences
  • (1) Undergraduate team 1st place winner Regional AIAA Student Paper Conferences
  • (3) Undergraduate placers (one 2nd, two 3rd ) AIAA Airplane Design Competitions

For more awards, see below.

VSCL undergraduate Hannah Lehman recognized for scholastic and research excellence at national and college of engineering levels

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Hannah Lehman ‘20, a senior in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University and an undergraduate research assistant of the Texas A&M Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory, has been awarded the AIAA Foundation Cary Spitzer Digital Avionics Scholarship for the 2019/2020 academic year.  She is being recognized for her outstanding academic record and her research contributions in Reinforcement Learning for the intelligent control of Unmanned Air Systems.  The scholarship is awarded annually to a college student in good academic standing who is pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering, or aeronautical engineering.

Hannah was recognized as the 2019 Gathright Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior in the College of Engineering.  Each year, the deans in each college are asked to select the most outstanding student from among all the juniors in their respective colleges based on research and/or creative production, community engagement, accomplishments/awards, and academic record, with the final selection criteria determined by the dean of each respective college.  Named in honor of the first president of the A&M College of Texas, it was established in April 1973 by The Association of Former Students in conjunction with Texas A&M’s Student Government Association.  As of Spring 2019, this award has become a collaboration between The Association of Former Students, LAUNCH: Academic Excellence, and the Texas A&M chapter of Phi Kappa Phi and has been renamed the “Gathright Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior” award.

 

Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory Awarded Patent for Design of Unmanned Air System

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Dr. John Valasek and Co-Inventors Andrew Beckett, James F. May, and Cecil C. Rhodes with research team and Pegasus at RELLIS Campus hangar.

A team of inventors from the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory, in the Department of Aerospace Engineering A&M University, have been awarded U.S. Patent 9,957,035 for Un-Manned Aerial Vehicle Having Adjustable Wing Module, Tail, and Landing Gear. The Pegasus Unmanned Air System (UAS) was conceived, specified, designed, built, and flown by the team of Dr. John Valasek, Professor, Graduate Research Assistants Andrew Beckett and James F. May, and A&P Technician and Flight Mechanics Specialist Cecil C. Rhodes Jr. Pegasus was conceived as the Control Systems Integration Testbed (CONSINT) for researching and evaluating fault tolerant adaptive control laws, autoland control laws, and a variety airborne sensors for imaging and tracking missions.

Video of the Pegasus flight operations can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/NWg24afA5GU

The Pegasus patent can be viewed here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9957035B2/en

 

Pegasus has 80+ flights at the Texas A&M University RELLIS campus, out of its design life of 300 takeoff and landing cycles. The airframe has a wing span of 12 feet and is designed to 7g limit maneuvering load factor and has a maximum takeoff weight of 108 pounds. Pegasus can carry 30 pounds of payload in the nose and fuselage payload bay, which has a volume of 12U half-width rack chassis. Pegasus features variable static stability with a positionable wing location on the fuselage and multiple redundant control surfaces: 8 ailerons, 2 elevators, 2 rudders, and throttle. Pegasus has a stall speed at maximum takeoff weight of 26 knots and a maximum speed of 90 knots. The endurance is 1+ hour depending upon fuel system configuration.

 

 

Valasek elected chair of AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee

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Dr. John Valasek, professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University and director of the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory, has been elected the chair of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Intelligent Systems Technical Committee (ISTC).

The ISTC addresses the application of Intelligent System (IS) technologies and methods to aerospace systems, the verification and validation of these systems, and the education of the AIAA membership in the use of IS technologies in aerospace and other technical disciplines.

Please see the full announcement by Jan McHarg on the Texas A&M College of Engineering website, here: https://engineering.tamu.edu/news/2019/01/valasek-elected-chair-of-aiaa-intelligent-systems-technical-committee.html 

Valasek, John

Dr. John Valasek

“A” Team wins MD5 A-Hack-of-the-Drones 2018

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On September 28th and 29th, members of the Vehicle Systems and Control Laboratory participated in the MD5 & Army Futures Command A-Hack-of-the-Drones event where developers were tasked with coming together to explore “non-traditional, innovative methods to counter sUAS.” There were four major areas of focus for the hackathon:

  • Detection – sUAS operating in a waypoint mode
  • Cyber Effects – undetected exploitation of sUAS systems and operators
  • Nullification – sUAS ability to perform a task without destroying the system
  • Elimination – eliminate a sUAS threat

We are proud to announce that the “A” Team, a multidisciplinary group of engineers from Texas A&M University and the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), was one of three teams that won the A-Hack-of-the-Drones hackathon and were awarded $15,000 to continue developing their ideas in partnership with MD5.

As the Texas A&M University Aerospace Engineering Department reports in the official announcement by Jan McHarg, found here:

“The “A” Team’s inspiration came from the major concern shared by both the United States and its allies like South Korea that the growing ubiquity of low-cost sUAS allows anyone with one of these devices to enter regions of civil or military interest and wreak havoc in ways unimaginable. Their belief was that it was of prime importance for agencies engaged in national security to be capable of detecting and tracking these devices to better protect the interests of those they serve.”

Three graduate student VSCL team members participated on the “A” Team and contributed their unique skills and understanding of sUAS and machine learning to the development of the “A”-team’s computer vision target-tracking solution. The three team members are:

  • Emily Fojtik
  • Vinicius G. Goecks
  • Garrett Jares

We are very proud of all the VSCL team members who participated in the hackathon and the “A” Team as a whole. We look forward to hearing about the continued development of your solution in the future.

Valasek honored by University of Kansas for Unmanned Air Systems contributions

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Dr. John Valasek, professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University and director of the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory, has been selected as the 2017-18 inductee into the University of Kansas Aerospace Engineering Honor Roll for his national contributions to Unmanned Air Systems (UAS). This award is given annually and recognizes alumni and other friends of the aerospace engineering department who have made major contributions to the aerospace engineering profession. Members of the honor roll serve in perpetuity as role models for aerospace engineering students and the public at large.

Please see the full announcement by Jan McHarg on the Texas A&M College of Engineering website, here: https://engineering.tamu.edu/news/2018/08/valasek-honored-by-university-of-kansas-for-unmanned-air-systems-contributions.html

Goecks awarded graduate research fellowship by Army Research Laboratory

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Vinicius Guimaraes Goecks, a doctoral student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been selected for a fellowship award in the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (USARL) Research Associateship Program (RAP).
 
This award, funded by USARL and administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), is presented to a doctoral student interested in investigating novel forms of human-robot interaction to enable humans to train intelligent robotic agents in real-time to perform desired tasks. Vinicius previously completed a Summer internship at USARL in 2017 and 2018.
 
“Intelligent robotic agents have many disruptive applications. As research progresses towards augmenting autonomous systems with self-learning capabilities, it is essential to investigate how these intelligent agents should be better integrated into our society — especially, how humans can shape their behavior in real-time”, says Vinicius. “I would like to thank Dr. John Valasek for encouraging and supporting me to pursue this award and line of research and the Army Research Laboratory for welcoming me on its facilities, technical support, and funding this program”.
 
Vinicius is a Ph.D. student in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory, and has been working with his advisor, Dr. John Valasek, for three years. Vinicius earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Federal Univerisity of Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil) in 2013. He earned his master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University in 2015 advised by Dr. John Hurtado. Vinicius is currently a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Intelligent Systems Technical Committee. His main research interests are reinforcement learning, computer vision, and data-driven controllers applied to unmanned air systems.

Please see the official announcement by Jan McHarg on the Texas A&M Aerospace Engineering Department website, here: Goecks awarded graduate research fellowship by Army Research Laboratory

VSCL graduate Joshua Harris recognized for research excellence at national and university levels

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Joshua Harris, a December 2017 graduate from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University and a graduate research assistant of the Texas A&M Vehicle Systems and Control Laboratory, has been awarded the 2018 Association of Former Students Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research  in the Masters category. He defended his master’s thesis titled “Nonlinear Adaptive Inversion Control for Variable Stability Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems” in October 2017, and he is being recognized for his outstanding academic record and contributions in aerospace engineering by a distinguished committee of reviewers.

Please see the full announcement by Jan McHarg on the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station website, here: “Harris recognized for research excellence at national and university levels”

 

Joshua Harris Defends MS Thesis on Tuesday, 17 October 2017

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Joshua Harris (B.S. Texas A&M University) successfully defended his Master of Science Thesis titled “Nonlinear Adaptive Dynamic Inversion Control for Variable Stability Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems”. Harris’s work provides a unique resource to the aerospace community and serves as a holistic review of aircraft modeling and its applications to flight control research. However, the main contributions of his work comes in the form of introducing nonlinear adaptive control laws which are then applied to a Command Augmentation System (CAS) and simulating a variety of variable stability in-flight controller designs. Harris has already accepted a position as a Software Engineer with the Flight Control/VMS Group at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Fort Worth, TX. Congratulations Josh! We are all extremely proud of you and your accomplishments and we look forward to seeing all the great work you will do in the future.

 

Joshua Harris Receives 2017 Outstanding Master of Science Student Award from College of Engineering

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Joshua Harris (B.S. Aerospace Engineering ‘14, Texas A&M University) was selected by the College of Engineering as the recipient of the 2017-2018 Outstanding Engineering Master of Science Graduate Student Award, out of a total of 1,134 currently enrolled MS students in the College of Engineering.

This award was created to recognize current graduate students who have demonstrated excellence above and beyond usual levels of achievement for their field.  Candidates are evaluated by faculty in the College of Engineering on the basis of scholastic achievements, leadership, service and character.  Recipients receive a commemorative memento of recognition and a monetary award of $5,000 as a one-time scholarship. 

Joshua is a graduate research assistant in VSCL since his freshman year and has contributed to essentially every research program since that time.  He has been working with his advisor, Dr. John Valasek, for six years.  Harris earned bachelor’s in aerospace engineering Summa Cum Laude from Texas A&M in 2014. He is a recipient of the National Defense Science Engineering Graduate Fellowship, the NASA Aeronautics Scholarship, the FAA PEGASAS Center of Excellence Outstanding Student Researcher Award, and the Sigma Gamma Tau Outstanding Texas A&M University Aerospace Engineering Senior for 2014. Harris is currently a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Intelligent Systems Technical Committee. This semester he will be defending his master’s thesis “Nonlinear Adaptive Inversion Control for Variable Stability Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems”.  He has accepted a position as a Software Engineer with the Flight Control/VMS Group at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Fort Worth, TX.

Professor John Valasek selected as 2017 AIAA Fellow

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Valasek, John

Dr. John Valasek

Dr. John Valasek, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been selected by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) as a 2017 AIAA Fellow. The AIAA confers the distinction of Fellow upon 1 percent of its members in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics. Valasek is being cited for “Pioneering contributions and outstanding leadership in flight mechanics and control leading to new capabilities in autonomous air refueling, morphing flight, and flight safety.”

The induction ceremony will take place at the AIAA Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala on May 3 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.