Two MAE students to attend AIAA SciTech Forum 2022

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Two Ohio State students, Andrew VanFossen and Bryce Ford, will be attending the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum 2022 for their research and paper writing accomplishments in the Laboratory for Autonomy in Data-Driven and Complex Systems.

VanFossen, a Ph.D. student in MAE and graduate researcher at LADDCS, is a finalist for the Guidance, Navigation and Control Best Graduate Student Paper Competition. As a finalist, VanFossen will receive a $500 award and complimentary registration to SciTech Forum 2022. If he wins the final competition, he will be rewarded an additional $1000.

VanFossen

VanFossen’s paper titled “Efficacy of Parallelization in Adaptive Monte Carlo for Forecasting in GEO” focuses on providing timely, trustworthy, and actionable intelligence to decision making entities through accurate uncertainty quantification.

Specifically, his paper leverages parallelization alongside a novel uncertainty forecasting framework to estimate the current state of geosynchronous resident space objects (RSOs). As it is not possible to maintain a persistent track on all RSOs in Earth’s orbit, these estimates can be passed to agencies such as NASA and the Air Force, or further processed to help prevent catastrophic collisions between objects in space.

As a 3rd year graduate student, being recognized at SciTech provides affirmation that the research I am pursuing is making an impact in my field,” VanFossen said. “It also presents new networking opportunities for the Laboratory for Autonomy in Data-Driven and Complex Systems at OSU that could have previously flown under the radar. All in all, SciTech is a great conference and I am simply happy to have the opportunity to share my research with a broader audience!

Bryce Ford

Ford, and an undergraduate student in MAE and student researcher at LADDCS, has been selected for the Undergraduate Conference Experience by the GNC Technical Committee. For his selection, Ford will receive a $600 travel scholarship for SciTech Forum 2022 and complimentary registration.

The Undergraduate Conference Experience program pairs GNC community mentors with students to introduce them to the conference events, including technical sessions, graduate student opportunities, and young professional activities.

The goals of the program are to provide motivated students insights into the GNC research community, career guidance, and networking opportunities with both young and experienced professionals in academia, industry and the government.

Ford is also the lead author of a paper being presented at the Forum. His paper “Backtracking Hybrid Α* for Resource Constrained Path Planning” focuses on graph search techniques to solve resource-constrained path planning problems.

Getting recognized at the SciTech forum as an undergraduate student means that all of the work of this past year is finally paying off,” Ford said, “I have my foot in the door in the research world.

LADDCS is directed by Dr. Mrinal Kumar, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State. Kumar was proud of the students from his lab.

“The students are the driving force behind the lab. Their hard work and dedication makes the lab what it is,” Kumar said. “I am just excited that they are gaining early recognition as they move on to do even bigger and better things in their careers.”

The winner of the competition and presentations will be given at the AIAA SciTech Forum 2022 will be held on Jan. 3-7, 2022, in San Diego or online, as the 2022 Forum is a hybrid event.