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!

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.

 

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 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 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 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.