News

• 10/15/2025: Associate editor for L4DC 2026.
• 09/30/2025: Excited to give seminars next semester at Lehigh U, UCSD, UW, and IMSI workshop on New Directions in Reinforcement Learning and Control at U Chicago. Thank you for the kind invitations!
• 09/30/2025: Invited talk at the 2025 IROS Workshop on Data-Enabled Learning and Control for Robotics. Thank you for the kind invitation.
• 09/04/2025: Jiawei Xu (Ph.D. @ Lehigh with David Saldaña) will be joining the group as a post-doc to work on our morphable quadrotor, investigating self-adaptive online learning for proprioception, predictive control, and aerial manipulation.
• 09/03/2025: Lecture 1’s slides from my new course on Online learning for control of single- and multi-robot systems.
• Received an Army Early Career (ECP) award. Indebted for the honor and the generous support. Proud of my students. Special thanks to my first three Ph.D. students, Zirui Xu, Hongyu Zhou, and Atharva Navsalkar, for their vision and hard work on resource-aware and self-adaptive decentralized learning and control. Cool papers to appear soon.
• 06/01/2025: Awarded grant from the Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) program to continue our work on our morphable quadrotor. This award is a continuation of an MTRAC Kickstarter award. Thank you for the generous support.
• 05/07/2025: Paper MorphEUS: Morphable Omnidirectional Unmanned System accepted at the Workshop on Open Challenges in Robotics for Asset Inspection and Management, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). With Ivan Bao, Jose C. D. P. G. Pacheco, Atharva Navsalkar, Andrew Scheffer, Sashreek Shankar, Andrew Zhao, and Hongyu Zhou.
• 05/01/2025: Paper on End-to-End Learning Framework for Solving Non-Markovian Optimal Control accepted at International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). With Xiaole Zhang, Peiyu Zhang, Xiongye Xiao, Shixuan Li, Vijay Gupta, and Paul Bogdan.
• 04/29/2025: Course announcement for Fall 2025: Online Learning for Single- and Multi-Agent Control.
• 04/22/2025: Paper on Simultaneous System Identification and Model Predictive Control with No Dynamic Regret accepted at IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). With Hongyu Zhou.
• 04/22/2025: Paper on No-Regret Model Predictive Control with Online Learning of Koopman Operators accepted at American Control Conference. With Hongyu Zhou.
• 04/14/2025: Paper on Communication- and Computation-Efficient Distributed Submodular Optimization in Robot Mesh Networks accepted at IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). With Sandilya Sai Garimella (now at GaTech) and Zirui Xu.
• 03/27/2025: Awarded a new grant from the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory to support our work on decentralized multi-agent control for situational awareness. Many thanks to Draper and my Draper collaborator Dr. Begum Cannataro.
• 03/10/2025: Hongyu Zhou and Zirui Xu receive the prestigious Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. Congrats!
• 01/31/2025: Elevated to IEEE Senior Member. Thank you to my letter writers.
• 01/28/2025: I will be giving several talks this year, including at MSU (Robotics seminar series), Univ Lisboa (Institute for Systems and Robotics), UC Berkeley (Semiautonomous seminar series), Toyota RI, and an Autonomy Talk. Looking forward to seeing you all!
• 01/20/2025: Associate Editor for IEEE/RSJ IROS 2025.
• 08/21/2024: Received an NSF CAREER award. Proud of my students. Especially thanks to my first two Ph.D. students, Zirui Xu and Hongyu Zhou, and to Sandilya Garimella (now Ph.D. student at GaTech), Xiaofeng Lin and Yichen Song (now both Ph.D. students at BU).
• 07/24/2024: Invited session at CDC 2024 on Submodularity in Control, Robotics, and Machine Learning: Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities. Co-organized with Prof. Solmaz S. Kia of UCI and Prof. Linda Bushnell of UW. Exciting line of speakers! See you there.
• 07/24/2024: Paper on Performance-Aware Self-Configurable Multi-Agent Networks: A Distributed Submodular Approach for Simultaneous Coordination and Network Design accepted at CDC 2024. With Zirui Xu.
• 07/16/2024: Paper on Communication- and Computation-Efficient Distributed Decision-Making in Multi-Robot Networks. With Zirui Xu and Sandilya Garimella.
• 07/07/2024: Paper on Simultaneous System Identification and Model Predictive Control with No Dynamic Regret. With Hongyu Zhou.
• 01/20/2024: Paper on Leveraging Untrustworthy Commands for Multi-Robot Coordination in Unpredictable Environments: A Bandit Submodular Maximization Approach has been accepted to ACC 2024. With Zirui Xu and Xiafeng Lin.
• 01/20/2024: Associate Editor for IEEE/RSJ IROS 2024 (this is the 4th year, wow; a pleasure to serve such a vibrant robotics venue).
• 10/01/2023: Associate Editor for IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA), starting Jan 2024.
• 09/20/2023: Paper on Leveraging Untrustworthy Commands for Multi-Robot Coordination in Unpredictable Environments: A Bandit Submodular Maximization Approach. With Zirui Xu and Xiafeng Lin.
• 09/20/2023: Paper on Safe Non-Stochastic Control of Control-Affine Systems has been accepted to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). With Hongyu Zhou and Yichen Song.
• 08/31/2023: Workshop paper Resource-Aware Simulator for Decentralized Active Perception with Multiple Robots accepted to IEEE/RSJ IROS 2023. With Sandilya Sai Garimella and Zirui Xu.
• 07/13/2023: 3 papers were accepted to IEEE CDC 2023, 2 of which are invited papers. With Hongyu Zhou and Zirui Xu.
• 06/24/2023: Paper on Safe Non-Stochastic Control of Control-Affine Systems. With Hongyu Zhou and Yichen Song.
• 06/22/2023: Invited talk on Resource-Aware Multi-Robot Coordination at the Mathworks 2023 Research Summit.
• 04/22/2023: Paper on Bandit Submodular Maximization for Multi-Robot Coordination in Unpredictable and Partially Observable Environments accepted to Robotics Science and System (RSS). With Zirui Xu and Xiaofeng Lin.
• 03/20/2023: Sigma Gamma Tau Silver Shaft Award, University of Michigan.
• 02/01/2023: Paper on Online Submodular Coordination with Bounded Tracking Regret: Theory, Algorithm, and Application to Multi-Robot Coordination has been accepted to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). With Zirui Xu and Hongyu Zhou.
• 01/30/2023: Invited talk on Safe Online Learning and Control at the 57th Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS), March 22-24, 2023.
• 01/03/2023: Paper on Efficient Online Learning with Memory via Frank-Wolfe Optimization: Algorithms with Bounded Dynamic Regret and Applications to Control. With Hongyu Zhou and Zirui Xu.
• 12/09/2022: Zirui Xu presents the paper Resource-Aware Distributed Submodular Maximization: A Paradigm for Multi-Robot Decision-Making at IEEE CDC (slides | video).
• 08/31/2022: Online Submodular Coordination with Bounded Tracking Regret: Theory, Algorithm, and Application to Multi-Robot Coordination. With Zirui Xu and Hongyu Zhou.
• 08/31/2022: Received Faculty Grant for organizing more than 60 events during the 2022 academic year within the Aerospace Department and beyond for our students, staff, and faculty.
• 08/18/2022: Paper on Safe Perception-Based Control with Minimal Worst-Case Dynamic Regret. With Hongyu Zhou.
• 07/15/2022: Zirui Xu and I will be organizing the invited session “Resource-Aware Learning and Optimization in Complex Networks” at the IEEE CDC 2022. We look forward to seeing you there.
• 07/15/2022: Paper on Resource-Aware Distributed Submodular Maximization: A Paradigm for Multi-Robot Decision-Making has been accepted to IEEE CDC 2022. With Zirui Xu.
• 04/15/2022: Paper Distributed Attack-Robust Submodular Maximization for Multi-Robot Planning has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). With L. Zhou, P. Tokekar, and G. J. Pappas.
• 03/31/2022: Paper on Resource-Aware Distributed Submodular Maximization: A Paradigm for Multi-Robot Decision-Making. With Zirui Xu.
• 03/13/2022: Paper Visual Navigation for Autonomous Vehicles: An Open-source Hands-on Robotics Course at MIT is accepted to IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC). With Luca Carlone, Kasra Khosoussi, Golnaz Habibi, Markus Ryll, Rajat Talak, Jingnan Shi, and Pasquale Antonante.
• 01/22/2021: Paper Visual Navigation for Autonomous Vehicles: An Open-source Hands-on Robotics Course at MIT submitted to IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC). With Luca Carlone, Kasra Khosoussi, Golnaz Habibi, Markus Ryll, Rajat Talak, Jingnan Shi, and Pasquale Antonante.
• 12/28/2021: I will be an Associate Editor for IEEE/RSJ IROS 2022.
• 10/01/2021: I proudly welcome 13 students to the Intelligent Robotics and Autonomy Lab (iRAL): 2 Ph.D, 5 M.Sc, and 6 B.Sc. students (including 4 UROPs); see our team here.
• 06/07/2021: Paper Outlier-Robust Estimation: Hardness, Minimally-Tuned Algorithms, and Applications accepted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). With Pasquale Antonante, Heng (Hank) Yang, and Luca Carlone.
• 05/18/21: 2020 Honorable Mention from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters for the paper Graduated Non-Convexity for Robust Spatial Perception: From Non-Minimal Solvers to Global Outlier Rejection. With Heng (Hank) Yang, Pasquale Antonante, and Luca Carlone.
• 05/14/21: Seminar at the University of Michigan, Sigma Gamma Tau Series.
• 05/02/21: Seminar at ETH, Autonomy Talk Series.
• 04/18/21: Paper on Resilient Active Information Acquisition with Teams of Robots accepted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). With Brent Schlotfeldt and George J. Pappas.
• 04/02/21: Seminar at the University of Michigan, Controls Seminars Series.
• 02/19/21: I am an Associate Editor for IEEE/RSJ IROS 2021.
• 02/01/21: MathWorks news article on paper Graduated Non-Convexity for Robust Spatial Perception.
• 01/01/21: MathWorks SLAM implementation of GNC algorithm proposed in paper Graduated Non-Convexity for Robust Spatial Perception.
• 12/13/20: Paper on Robust and Adaptive Sequential Submodular Optimization accepted to IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (TAC). With Ali Jadbabaie and George J. Pappas.
• 12/01/20: Paper on Resilient Active Information Acquisition with Teams of Robots conditionally accepted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). With Brent Schlotfeldt and George J. Pappas.
• 12/01/20: MATLAB integration of algorithm proposed in Graduated Non-Convexity for Robust Spatial Perception: From Non-Minimal Solvers to Global Outlier Rejection.
• 11/27/20: Paper Outlier-Robust Estimation: Hardness, Minimally-Tuned Algorithms, and Applications conditionally accepted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). With Pasquale Antonante, Heng (Hank) Yang, and Luca Carlone.
• 08/18/20: Recent algorithmic results on outlier-robust estimation (cf. Best Paper Award in Robot Vision, ICRA 2020) will become an official function in MATLAB 2020b. Interview article to appear.
• 07/31/20: New paper on Outlier-Robust Estimation: Hardness, Minimally-Tuned Algorithms, and Applications. With Pasquale Antonante, Heng (Hank) Yang, and Luca Carlone.
• 07/16/20: Program committee member, Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2020.
• 07/16/20: Paper on Robust and Adaptive Sequential Submodular Optimization conditionally accepted to IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (TAC). With Ali Jadbabaie and George J. Pappas.
• 06/05/20: Best Paper Award in Robot Vision, International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020, for the paper Graduated Non-Convexity for Robust Spatial Perception: From Non-Minimal Solvers to Global Outlier Rejection (video). With Heng Yang, Pasquale Antonante, and Luca Carlone.
• 05/14/20: Paper LQG Control and Sensing Co-Design accepted to the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (TAC). With Luca Carlone, George J. Pappas, and Ali Jadbabaie.
• 05/11/20: MIT LIDS|ALL Magazine interview featuring my research on robust autonomy, Algorithms that protect, Vol. 15.
• 04/14/20: I will join the Aerospace Engineering team at the University of Michigan as an assistant professor on January 2021.
• 03/16/20: Invited seminar, Northeastern University. Seminar title: Foundations of Resilient Collaborative Autonomy: From Robust Combinatorial Optimization to Control and Learning.
• 03/04/20: Invited seminar, Mechanical Engineering Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Seminar title: Foundations of Resilient Collaborative Autonomy: From Robust Combinatorial Optimization to Control and Learning.
• 02/28/20: Invited seminar, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University. Seminar title: Foundations of Resilient Collaborative Autonomy: From Robust Combinatorial Optimization to Perception and Control.
• 02/07/20: Invited seminar at the Aerospace Engineering Department, University of Michigan. Seminar title: Foundations of Resilient Collaborative Autonomy: From Robust Combinatorial Optimization to Perception and Control.
• 10/16/19: Promoted to research scientist at MIT.

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