Can autonomous vehicles operate safely in cities?
Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics Ph.D. Student Nuri Kundak is exploring the use of autonomous, miniature helicopters in close quarters – like might be experienced in cities during military or civilian operations. Working with AEM Assistant Professor Bernard Mettler, Kundak aims to integrate current control theory with technologies on the horizon.
Using state-of-the-art sensing technology, Kundak and others in Mettler’s lab can operate any suitably-small, off-the-shelf aerial vehicle in their indoor testbed to evaluate the performance of control and planning applications. The lab allows scientists to generate realistic and fully measurable conditions while giving access to all the effects that play into the overall performance of the test vehicle.
“One of our key objectives is improving the performance of autonomous guidance algorithms,” Kundak says of his research. “We are primarily evaluating their performance under disturbances and imperfect environment knowledge.”
In addition, Kundak is exploring the boundaries where trade-offs between accuracy and speed of the computation exist.
“Once we can provide strong guarantees on performance and robustness of the algorithms, this will ensure success in real-time applications in certain complex environments and tasks, like urban operations for scouting, target location, rescue, and the sort.”
Kundak chose the University of Minnesota because of its faculty expertise in autonomous flight research, as well as its broader reputation in engineering. With his degree, Kundak expects to develop cutting edge innovation in the world of unmanned aerial vehicles.
“The department and my advisor have provided me with an excellent infrastructure to conduct research and experiments allowing me to develop understanding of practical implications in my area,” Kundak says of the role AEM has played in his education. “Likewise, the courses and seminars in the program were both substantial in the theoretical base to attain necessary knowledge and rich to encourage a young researcher to take and explore different routes in the multidisciplinary area of aerospace controls.”
Last Modified: 2008-02-27 at 15:49:30 -- this is in International Standard Date and Time Notation