Challenges and Directions in Guidance, Navigation and Control of Autonomous Aerospace Vehicles

Seminar Speaker: Amit K. Sanyal, Syracuse University

Abstract: Autonomous aerospace vehicles have applications in diverse fields like space exploration
and infrastructure inspection, and future applications like air taxi. However, there are several
challenges that lie ahead in achieving safe and reliable autonomy of aerospace vehicles. The
biggest challenges in integrating autonomous aerospace vehicles into human society have to
do with dynamic uncertainties due to natural (environmental) and human-made reasons.
Recent advances in learning-based and data-driven control have made it possible to deal
with these challenges to some extent. However, further advances are needed in the coming
decades, to meet the requirements of safety and reliability for autonomous aerospace vehicles
operating in the presence of humans. This talk explores the challenges specific to guidance,
navigation and control (GNC) of autonomous aerospace vehicles and how my reasearch has
handled these challenges. A key feature of this research is the stress on nonlinear stability
and robustness of GNC algorithms for autonomous aerospace vehicles in the presence of
actuator constraints, sensor and onboard processor capabilities, and dynamic (time-varying)
uncertain inputs or disturbances. Future directions that include learning-based control for
autonomy of aerospace vehicles are also presented.

Bio: Amit Sanyal obtained the B.Tech. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur, in 1999. He completed his MS in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A& M
University in 2001, where he received the Distinguished Graduate Student Masters Research Award.
He obtained his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and MS in Mathematics from the University of
Michigan in 2004 and 2005 respectively, and was recipient of an Engineering Academic Scholar
Certificate. After doing post-doctoral research at Arizona State University in 2005-2006, he joined
the faculty in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hawaii in 2007. From 2010 to 2015,
he was a faculty in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at New Mexico State University. He is
currently a faculty in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse University. He develops
and applies techniques from geometric mechanics, nonlinear and geometric control, and continuous
and discrete-time Lagrangian/Hamiltonian systems, to dynamics modeling, guidance, navigation,
and control of unmanned and autonomous systems. He is a senior member of AIAA and IEEE,
and a member of ASME and SIAM.