Autonomy and robotics are fields that are focused on developing systems and devices that can operate independently, without the need for human intervention. Robotics involves the design, construction, and programming of physical machines that can perform tasks, while autonomy refers to the ability of a system to make decisions and take actions on its own. Together, these fields have led to the development of a wide range of applications, including self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and robots used in manufacturing and healthcare. The goal of autonomy and robotics is to create systems that can perform tasks more efficiently, accurately, and safely than humans, and to free humans from repetitive or dangerous tasks.
Feedback control systems involves the use of feedback from sensors that inform a decision or algorithm that enables a process to achieve a desired outcome. Optimization seeks to maximize or minimize a user defined cost function. Often these fields are combined to form optimal control which involves determining the best action or decision to maximize or minimize a reward. Complexity in these domains arise when the governing dynamic models are high dimension, nonlinear, or contain uncertainty. Additional challenges arise when feedback is limited, erroneous, or needs to be protected. Such challenges arise in single processes and can be exacerbated when distributed across a network of processes. Control and optimization methods cut across almost every domain of our society with impacts in all disciplines of engineering, including societal impacts such as how we grow and gather food, how we power our homes, how all forms of transportation get us from point A to point B, how we communicate through networks, how we provide healthcare, and how we explore our universe. Several reports on the societal impacts of control can be found here.
Areas of Excellence
- Adaptive & Learning Control
- Autonomous Vehicles
- Category Theory
- Flow Control
- Human Machine Interaction
- Model Predictive Control
- Network Control
- Nonlinear Control
- Operator Theory
- Optimal Control
- Optimal Estimation
- Path Planning
- Rehabilitation Robotics
- Robust Control
- Space Robotics
- Tensegrity
- Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
- Underwater Robotics
Facilities
- Autonomy Park – The University of Florida Autonomy Park is an instrument for the investigation, characterization, validation, and verification of heterogeneous networks of multi-agent autonomous systems operating in contested environments.
- HiPerGator -The University of Florida supercomputer is a cluster that includes the latest generation of processors and offers nodes for memory-intensive computation.
Associated Centers and Institutes
- Air Force Office Of Scientific Research Center of Excellence in Assured Autonomy in Contested Environments
- Center for Coastal Solutions
- Florida Institute for National Security
- University of Florida Transportation Institute
Group Email
robotics-autonomous-systems@mae.ufl.edu
Related Faculty
Professor Banks has been active in orthopaedic and joint mechanics research his entire career. He is a member of several professional societies including ASME, the Knee Society, the American Society for Biomechanics and the Orthopaedic Research Society. Professor Banks served as President and annual conference host for the International Society for Technology in Arthroplasty in 2013, and remains a member of the Board of Directors.…
Education
B.S., 2012, University of Florida,M.S., 2013, University of Florida,Ph.D., 2017, University of Florida
Professional Memberships and Fellowships
American Society of Engineering Education, Member
Teaching Interests
Numerical methods, control systems, and optimization.
John Conklin is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. He joined the UF faculty in 2012 after a three-year research associateship at the W.W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford. He received his BS and MEng degrees from Cornell and PhD from Stanford in 2009. In 2011, John was the Fulbright Junior Lecturer at the University of Trento in Italy.…
Carl D. Crane is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Director of the Center for Intelligent Machines and Robotics (CIMAR) at the University of Florida. He received his B.S. and M.E. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1978 and 1979. Following this he spent five years as an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers.…
Prof. Warren Dixon received his Ph.D. in 2000 from Clemson University. He worked as a research staff member and Eugene P. Wigner Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) until 2004, when he joined the University of Florida in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, where he is now an Ebaugh Professor and Department Chair. His main research interest has been the development and application of Lyapunov-based control techniques for uncertain nonlinear systems.…
Dr. Eric Jing Du is an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, and MAE’s affiliate and graduate faculty. Before joining University of Florida in January 2019, he was a faculty member at Texas A&M University, and a senior production analyst at Zachry Industrial in San Antonio, TX. His primary area of research is human-robot collaboration for complex industrial operations.…
Dr. James Fairbanks’ work specializes in the areas of Computational Science and Engineering, Computational Mathematics, numerical methods, and high-performance computing (HPC). He aims to utilize applied category theory, and algebraic techniques for designing and developing software for technical computing problems. In the realm of Computational Mathematics, his research focuses on using mathematical modeling and numerical methods to address challenges in scientific computing and data-driven engineering.…
Education
Ph.D., 1990, Auburn University
Professional Memberships and Fellowships
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Member
Research Interests
Dynamics and control of multibody systems, game theory, orbital dynamics, flight mechanics.
Dr. Jie Fu received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and Automaton from Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2009, and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA, in 2013. From 2013 to 2015, she was a Postdoctoral Scholar with the University of Pennsylvania. From 2016-2021, she was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Robotics Engineering, Worcester, MA.…
After 20 years in the robotics industry, Mike came back to UF to teach the design courses.
Education
1991 Ph.D. University of Florida
1988 MSME University of Florida
1985 BSME University of Florida
Professional Memberships and Fellowships
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Member
Teaching Interests
Design, Kinematics, Statics, Numerical Methods
Research Interests
Kinematics, Statics, Screw Theory
Dan Guralnik received his Ph.D. from the Technion-IIT Mathematics department in 2005, specializing in Geometric Group Theory. After post-doctoral appointments at Vanderbilt University and University of Oklahoma, where he worked on asymptotic geometry and boundary dynamics of discrete groups, he moved in 2011 to a post-doctoral appointment at KodLab, the legged locomotion laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, to start work on applications of topology and category theory to problems of knowledge representation in the context of navigation and control.…
Matthew Hale received his BSE summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and received his MS and PhD from Georgia Tech. His work is driven by designing and analyzing multi-agent coordination algorithms that function well under challenging conditions, such as asynchronous information sharing, noisy communications, and user privacy requirements. His work deploys these algorithms on teams of flying and ground robots, providing both validation of the underlying theory and further research directions.…
Dr. Yong Huang is a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering. His research interests are two-fold: 1) processing of biological and engineering materials for healthcare/energy applications, and 2) understanding of dynamic material behavior during manufacturing and process-induced damage or defect structures. He served as the Technical Program Chair for the 2010 American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (ASME MSEC 2010) and the 2012 International Symposium on Flexible Automation (ISFA 2012).…
Education
Ph.D., 1992, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Research Interests
Experimental mechanics, moire interferometry, compositie materials, micro air vehicles.
Professional Memberships and Fellowships
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Member
Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Member
Rushikesh Kamalapurkar received his M.S. and his Ph.D. degrees in 2011 and 2014 from the Department of Mechanical
and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. After working for a year as a postdoctoral researcher, he was
appointed as the 2015-16 MAE postdoctoral teaching fellow. From 2016 to 2024 he served as a member of the faculty
of the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma State University.…
Education
Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, 1995, University of Minnesota
Professional Memberships and Fellowships
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Member
Research Interests
aeroservoelasticity, morphing, controls, flight testing
Amor A. Menezes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, an affiliate of the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, an affiliate of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, and a member of the Institute for Cell & Tissue Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. His group applies dynamical systems theory and control engineering methods in the fields of systems biology and synthetic biology.…
Professor Mohseni received his Ph.D. in 2000 from California Institute of Technology. After a year as a Postdoc in Control and Dynamical Systems at Caltech he joined the Aerospace Engineering Sciences department at the University of Colorado in Boulder as an Assistant Professor. Professor Mohseni joined the University of Florida as W. P. Bushnell Endowed Professor in MAE and ECE departments in 2011.…
Dr. Patrick Musgrave received his PhD from Virginia Tech in 2018 and BSc & BSE from the University of Pittsburgh in 2012. Dr. Musgrave’s research focuses on adaptive and morphing systems operating in fluidic environments, in particular systems subject to dynamic fluid-structure interactions. These systems are inherently multi-physical and sit at the intersection of structures, hydro/aerodynamics, mechatronics, smart materials, and controls.…
Alicia Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) at the University of Florida. Through data analysis, instrumentation and modeling, Dr. Petersen researches the kinetic physics, magnetism and dynamics at play during the transit and interaction of space weather phenomena in the inner solar system, their impacts on spacecraft, and strategies for mitigating the impacts of space weather.…
Dr. Christopher “Chrispy” Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Department at the University of Florida. His research interests lie in anything related to space guidance, navigation, control, and autonomy, with particular focus of making techniques real-time implementable and usable for operators. While all of space interests him, his research mostly is concerned with Rendezvous, Proximity Operations, and Docking (RPOD) and any satellite in the eXtra Geostationary (XGEO) regime (above geostationary orbit, to the Moon, and beyond).…
Professor Rao earned his Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University, his M.S.E. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan, and his B.S. in mechanical engineering and A.B. in mathematics from Cornell University. Professor Rao’s research interests lie in the area of control and optimization of space and air vehicles and combine the development of new computational methods for optimal control with novel applications including space mission planning, performance optimization of atmospheric flight vehicles, and other vehicular control problems (for example, high performance ground and underwater vehicles). …
Professor Subrata Roy studies ionized gas physics and its various applications: (1) Atmospheric plasma actuators for flow mixing, propulsion, and turbulent flow control; (2) Hypersonic flows; (3) Space propulsion; and (4) Hydrodynamic models for micro and nanofluidics by incorporating Knudsen’s theory. Prof. Roy is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Fellow of the ASME, and an Associated Fellow of the AIAA.…
Homepage
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HONORS AND AWARDS
Best Contributed Theoretical Paper for paper “Data Generation with PROSPECT: a Probability Specification Tool” at the Winter Simulation Conference. 12/2021
Frank Anger Memorial Award for crossover of ideas between the SIGSOFT (software engineering) and SIGBED (embedded systems) communities. 05/2017
Best Paper Award for paper “Challenges in Physical Modeling for Adaptation of Cyber- Physical Systems” at the Third IEEE World Forum on the Internet of Things.…
Prof. John K. Schueller received his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1983. He is a generalist with some concentration in manufacturing and in off-highway vehicles and equipment. He is a Fellow of ASABE, IAABE, and SAE and holds Founder, Life, and/or Senior Member status in ASME, EurAgEng, IEEE, ISAE, and SME. Prof. Schueller is the Chair Editor-in-Chief of Computers and Electronics in Agriculture and serves on the Management Committee of the Club of Bologna.…
Jane Shin is an assistant professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Florida. She received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and the B.S. degree in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from Seoul National University.
During her PhD, she closely collaborated with the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Panama City (NSWC PCD) on developing novel information-driven sensor path planning algorithms for underwater multi-target classification using side-scan sonar sensors.…
Professor Xin Tang received his Post-doctoral training from Harvard University and Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include cell and molecular mechanics in cancer development and metastasis, cardiovascular system, and neurons; unconventional mechano-electrophysiology; quantitative in vivo/vitro functional bio-imaging; bio-nanotechnology; and development of new biophysical tools to probe biological function/structure. His research is supported by NIH, NSF, AFOSR/DoD, UF Health Cancer Center, UF Opportunity Funds, and etc.…
Lawrence Ukeiley is currently a Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Florida. His primary research interests are in experimental fluid dynamics and turbulence as related to flow control, aeroacoustics, fluid structure interactions and the development of low order models. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Alfred University in 1989 and his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University in 1992 and 1996 respectively.…
Yu Wang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida (UF) and the Group Lead of Autonomous and Connected Vehicles of the UF Transportation Institute. He was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and M.S.…
Professional Memberships and Fellowships
American Physical Society, Member
Professor Wiens is currently conducting research in the area of human-robot collaboration for smart factory, integrating AI with robot control in providing augmented intelligence of robots interacting with humans, other robots and machines. She has also been conducting research in the areas of intelligent and autonomous robotic systems, innovative mechanisms and controls for automation, space robotics/small satellites, manufacturing and micro-electro-mechanical systems.…
