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VSCL Undergraduates Awarded Scholarships at Fall Aerospace Engineering Award Ceremony

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VSCL undergraduates Alex Gross ’23, Cassie-Kay McQuinn ’21, and Leah Davis ’22 were awarded Aerospace Engineering Scholarships at the Fall Aerospace Engineering Award ceremony this semester.

VSCL undergraduate students Alex Gross ’23 and Leah Davis ’22 were awarded the Benjamin R and Deanna J Smith Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to 5 outstanding undergraduate students selected by the donors for their academic merit. Alex is a Junior in Aerospace Engineering with minors in Computer Science and Mathematics. He is expected to graduate in May 2023 and has been a member of VSCL since Spring 2020. Leah Davis will graduate in May 2022.

VSCL undergraduate Cassie-Kay McQuinn ’21 was awarded the Aerospace Engineering Advisory Board Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to an outstanding student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M. Selection criteria includes: leadership/professional involvement, academic success and service to the department. Cassie is a Senior and will graduate in December from Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering with Engineering Honors. She has been a member of VSCL since Spring 2021 and will be continuing her work with VSCL as a Master of Science student in Spring 2022.

VSCL graduate student Hannah Lehman inducted into the AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee

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VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and Ph.D. student Hannah Lehman has been inducted into the AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee (ISTC).  The ISTC is a group within AIAA that 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. Lehman was inducted due to her technical experience in IS and involvement with AIAA. She was previously a member of the AIAA Software Technical Committee.

Lehman’s undergraduate research experience and doctoral research aligns with the ISTC’s activities.  She is the recipient of the AIAA Foundation Cary Spitzer Digital Avionics Scholarship for her research contributions in Reinforcement Learning for the intelligent control of Unmanned Air Systems, and a Co-Inventor with Collins Aerospace on two patents for IS applied to airplane ground operations at airports.  Lehman researched IS for the 2019 NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, and for a 2020 summer internship with Sandia National Laboratories.  Her doctoral dissertation is sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories on the project Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents.

Lehman earned her bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering Summa Cum Laude in 2020 from Texas A&M University as a University Scholar, Engineering Honors, and 2019 Gathright Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior in the College of Engineering.  As a first year graduate student Lehman was awarded the College of Engineering Graduate Merit Doctoral Fellowship for 2020-2023.  She has been conducting research in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory with her research Advisor and Chair of dissertation committee, Dr. John Valasek, since her sophomore year.

 

Four New Ph.D. Graduate Students Join VSCL in Fall 2020

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VSCL is proud to welcome four new Ph.D. graduate research assistants:

Shelby Hackett is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. She graduated in May 2020 from the University of Florida with B.S. degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering. During her undergraduate studies, she completed an honors thesis on range optimal control for an aircraft, looking at methods for solutions that lie on a singular arc. While in school, she completed internships at Sandia National Laboratories and GE Oil & Gas as a Research & Development intern and a Manufacturing Engineering intern, respectively.  Shelby is currently interning at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM as a Research & Development intern. She will be a member of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control II group, working on improving GPS systems for defense vehicles. This is her second summer interning with Sandia. In the fall, Shelby will research Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents, which is sponsored by Sandia National Laboratory.

 

 

 

Hannah Lehman  is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  Hannah has been an active member of VSCL since Fall 2017, focusing on human-machine interaction and the control of UAS with Machine Learning. As an undergraduate, she participated in internships with Rockwell Collins, Collins Aerospace, and the REU program. She graduated with the B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University as a University Scholar, University Honors, and Engineering Honors in May 2020. As a Graduate Research Assistant Hannah researches Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents, which is sponsored by Sandia National Laboratory. She is also participating in a remote 2020 summer internship at Sandia National Laboratory with a focus on machine learning.

 

 

 

 

Nidhin Ninan is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. He graduated from the University of Kansas with a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering. During his undergraduate studies, Nidhin worked on Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) based navigation using depth sense camera and edge detection using reinforcement learning for a Mars rover prototype being built at KU for the Mars Society’s University Rover Challenge. AT VSCL, Nidhin will be working on the Agile Technology Development (ATD)  – Air-Ground Coordinated Teaming, which is sponsored by the Army Futures Command.

 

 

 

 

 

Ravi Kumar Thakur is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  His interest is in the field of aerospace robotics and autonomy. He graduated with an MS(Research) degree in Electronics and Communication from the Indian Institute of Information Technology Sri City, Chittoor in 2019. For his thesis, he worked on developing machine learning-based models for estimating scene flow from stereo images. He earned his BS in Engineering Physics from National Institute of Technology Calicut in 2014. In the past, he was a machine learning engineer at Ford Motor Company,  where he worked on driver assistant technology with a focus on visual odometry and object tracking. Before that, he worked at the Indian Institute of science working on the development of an endoscopy simulator. At VSCL, Ravi will be working on the project Enhancing the Cycle-of-Learning for Autonomous Systems to Facilitate Human-Agent Teaming which is sponsored by Army Research Laboratory.

VSCL Student Vinicius G. Goecks Graduates with Doctor of Philosophy

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VSCL alumni Vinicius G. Goecks, who graduated with his Doctor of Philosophy degree in May 2020, has started his postdoctoral position at the US Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.  At the US Army Research Laboratory, Vinicius will be developing novel algorithms on human-in-the-loop reinforcement learning assisted by eye gaze and natural language commands applied to tasks where unmanned robotic agents are teamed with humans.  He had joined VSCL in 2016 and had previously participated in Summer internships at the US Army Research Laboratory in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

VSCL graduate student Garrett Jares Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

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Garrett Jares, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University and Graduate Research Assistant in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory, has been awarded a 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.  The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.  NSF Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering.

Garrett earned the BS degree in Computer Science from Texas A&M University with a minor in Cybersecurity and a minor in Mathematics, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2017. He has been working in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory (VSCL) with his advisor, Dr. John Valasek, since his undergraduate senior capstone project in 2017. During his undergraduate education, Garrett studied extensively in cybersecurity including research in cryptography topics. Garrett’s work with VSCL has been developing embedded systems for Unmanned Air Systems (UAS), and overseeing the operation of the Engineering Flight Simulator Laboratory.  Garrett is combining his undergraduate knowledge with his experience in VSCL to investigate Cybersecurity for air and space vehicles.

Garrett’s doctoral dissertation will investigate cyber-attacks designed that are designed to take control of an aircraft by targeting the vehicle’s sensor data.  This research will help identify and better understand the vulnerabilities in current systems and develop safeguards against such attacks.  Garrett is a recipient of the Crawford & Hattie Jackson Foundation Scholarship, the Edward C. Clay ’47 Memorial Scholarship, and the 2018 Lechner Graduate Fellowship.

Bera to Present PODNet Paper at AAAI-MAKE 2020 on March 23

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VSCL Graduate Research Assistant Ritwik Bera will present a paper titled “PODNet: A Neural Network for Discovery of Plannable Options” at the AAAI-MAKE: Combining Machine Learning and Knowledge Engineering in Practice, AAAI Spring Symposium on March 23, 2020. Co-authored by researchers from the US Army Research Laboratory’s Human Research and Engineering Directorate, this continuing project investigates how to segment an unstructured set of demonstrated trajectories for option discovery. This enables learning from demonstration to perform multiple tasks and plan high-level trajectories based on the discovered option labels. This method is composed of several constituent networks that not only segment demonstrated trajectories into options, but concurrently trains an option dynamics model that can be used for downstream planning tasks and training on simulated rollouts to minimize interaction with the environment while the policy is maturing. The paper documenting this work is “PODNet: A Neural Network for Discovery of Plannable Options,” currently available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.00171.

Goecks to Present Cycle-of-Learning Paper at AAMAS 2020 on May 11

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VSCL Graduate Research Assistant Vinicius Goecks will present a paper on “Integrating Behavior Cloning and Reinforcement Learning for Improved Performance in Dense and Sparse Reward Environments” at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems on May 11, 2020. Co-authored by researchers from the US Army Research Laboratory’s Human Research and Engineering Directorate, this continuing project investigates how to efficiently transition and update policies, trained initially with demonstrations,  using off-policy actor-critic reinforcement learning. This method outperforms state-of-the-art techniques for combining behavior cloning and reinforcement learning for both dense and sparse reward scenarios. Results also suggest that directly including the behavior cloning loss on demonstration data helps to ensure stable learning and ground future policy updates.

The paper documenting this work, “Integrating Behavior Cloning and Reinforcement Learning for Improved Performance in Dense and Sparse Reward Environments,” is available at the official AAMAS 2020 proceedings, together with the supplemental material detailing the training hyperparameters.

A summary video of the proposed method can be found here, along with the project page that accompanied the paper submission.

Valasek Editor of new AIAA book on computational intelligence and autonomy for aerospace systems

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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 edited a new book titled Advances in Computational Intelligence and Autonomy for Aerospace Systems (AIAA Progress in Aeronautics and Astronautics Series, 2018).  The book seeks to provide both the aerospace researcher and the practicing aerospace engineer with further insight into the latest innovative methods and approaches regarding intelligent and autonomous aerospace systems. Written by leading researchers in the field, it focuses on:

  • Intelligent Space Systems
  • Intelligent Validation and Verification Methods
  • Intelligent Health Monitoring
  • Intelligent Flight Control

Research advances in embedded computational intelligence, communication, control, and new mechanisms for sensing, actuation, and adaptation hold the promise to transform aerospace. The result will be air and space vehicles, propulsion systems, exploration systems, and vehicle management systems that respond more quickly, provide large-scale distributed coordination, work in dangerous or inaccessible environments, and augment human capabilities.

VSCL undergraduate Hannah Lehman awarded Texas A&M University College of Engineering Graduate Merit Fellowship for 2020- 2023

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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 Texas A&M University College of Engineering Graduate Merit Fellowship for 2020- 2023.  This highly competitive fellowship funds $30,000 per year for 3-4 years (Ph.D.) in addition to health insurance costs, and tuition and fees.  All competitive domestic applicants who applied for a fall semester matriculation are considered for this prestigious fellowship. One student is awarded for each participating department. 

Dr. John Valasek will serve as her research Advisor and Chair of dissertation committee.  As a Graduate Research Assistant Hannah will research Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents, which is sponsored by Sandia National Laboratory.  She will also do a 2020 summer internship at Sandia National Laboratory.

Hannah has been an active member of VSCL since Fall 2017, focusing on human-machine interaction and the control of UAS with Machine Learning.  She will graduate with the B.S. degree in aerospace engineering as a University Scholar, University Honors, and Engineering Honors in May 2020.  She has been awarded the 2019/2020 AIAA Foundation Cary Spitzer Digital Avionics Scholarship, the 2019 Gathright Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior in the College of Engineering, and placed 1st in the 2018 AIAA Region IV Student Paper Conference. 

Four New Graduate Students Join VSCL in Fall 2019

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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.