Description
This is an AICTE approved Short Term Program
Department: Aerospace Engineering
Intended audience: Industry participants, Faculty
About: Owing to their enormous potential, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that are capable of autonomous beyond visual line-of-sight flight are deployed in diverse applications ranging from search and rescue, package delivery, traffic monitoring, infrastructure inspection, reconnaissance and so on. Currently, most of these missions are accomplished with a remote operator; however, recent advances in sensing and actuation technologies, computing and communication technologies, motion planning and collision avoidance algorithms, and control design methods have enabled autonomous operations that require minimal human intervention.
A host of challenges need to be addressed to facilitate autonomous operations of UAS. The foremost task of an autonomous system is to acquire knowledge about itself and its environment. Efficient perception and navigation systems are therefore critical for autonomous operations. Based on situational awareness, computationally efficient task planning and motion planning algorithms are required to continually update the plan in near real-time to achieve the mission goals while ensuring the safety of the system. Another important challenge is to design controllers, which ensure that the UAS tracks the reference commands despite significant atmospheric disturbances and sensor noise. When UAS are deployed in safety-critical applications, where collateral damage due to incorrect operation or purposeful attacks by malicious agents might lead to human casualties, the designer needs to put systems in place that would ensure that the deployed UAS safely executes its intended function.
The short-term course aims to provide the participants with an overview of the state-of-the-art developments in unmanned aircraft systems with a focus on autonomous operations. The course will start with an introduction to autonomous systems and then cover topics in flight dynamics modelling and model-based controller design, navigation systems, motion planning and collision-avoidance algorithms, security-aware design of UAS, and verification and validation.
Session dates: 21-03-2022 to 26-03-2022
Time: -information awaited-
Last date of Registration: 16-03-2022
Profile of the Instructor(s)
Name: Prof. Devaprakash Muniraj
Profile: Devaprakash Muniraj is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Madras. He did his B.E. degree in aeronautical engineering from Madras Institute of Technology, Anna
University, in 2010. After his graduation, he worked as a scientist in the Integrated Flight Control Systems
directorate at the Aeronautical Development Agency, Bengaluru, between 2010 and 2014, where his work
involved flight dynamic analysis, control law design, and analysis of high angle of attack phenomena for a
high-performance fighter aircraft. He then obtained his Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from Virginia
Tech, USA, in 2019. His doctoral research focused on addressing some of the challenges in making
unmanned aircraft systems secure and reliable. During his postdoctoral stint at Virginia Tech, his work
involved developing interface requirements for the components of an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV)
such that performance and safety guarantees can be established using formal proofs and/or limited
simulation/testing for different UUV missions. He is a recipient of the Aeronautical Research and
Development Board fellowship for the period 2006-2010, the institute gold medal from Madras Institute of
Technology, Anna University, in 2010, and the Brian Nerney graduate research fellowship from Virginia Tech
in 2019.
His current research interests include security-aware design of UAS, verification and validation of UAS using
tools from compositional verification and falsification, and applying tools from robust control theory to UAS.
Name: Prof. Satadal Ghosh
Profile: Satadal Ghosh is presently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Madras. In 2006, he finished his undergraduate studies in Electrical Engineering Department at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Subsequently, after a brief period of one year in Siemens Ltd, he returned to academia in 2007 and pursued his postgraduate studies in Quality, Reliability, and Operations Research at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, where he was awarded gold medal for his academic achievement. Next, in 2009, he joined Indian Institute of Science to pursue his doctoral research in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. His doctoral dissertation was focused on analysis of several variants of celebrated classical Proportional Navigation (PN) Guidance law against challenging targets having speed or maneuver advantages. Then, during the period 2015-2017, he pursued his postdoctoral research in Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA, with the prestigious U.S. National Research Associateship award. His postdoctoral research involved development of effective guidance strategies for unmanned aerial combats and surface interdiction missions and validation of them in software-based and realistic test-beds. Subsequently, after a short stint of two months as academic visitor in National University of Singapore, he joined IIT Madras.
His current research interest broadly includes motion planning, guidance and control for aerospace and autonomous vehicles / systems applications. He has published research results in several top-tier peer-reviewed international journals and conferences. He has also been associated with the reviewers’ panel for several international journals and conferences.
Name: Prof. Nandan K. Sinha
Profile: Nandan K. Sinha is a professor in the department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India, since July 2014. He has been teaching and guiding research in the areas of nonlinear dynamical systems and control theories with applications to aerospace vehicles for close to two decades now. He holds Bachelor, Master, and PhD degrees from the IITs, Bombay and Kanpur, India, followed by a post-doctoral tenure at the department of Mechanical Engineering (formerly known as Institut für Mechanik), Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. Dr. Sinha has authored two textbooks, namely, Elementary Flight Dynamics with an Introduction to Bifurcation and Continuation Methods (1st Ed 2014, 2nd Ed 2021), and Advanced Flight Dynamics with Elements of Flight Control (2017) with Dr. N Ananthkrishnan, both published by CRC press, USA. He has been a nominee and participant of the prestigious US-IVLP (International Visitors Leadership Program) in 2018 on the theme of US-India Space Cooperation. He is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and serves as subject expert to many organizations in various activities.
Eligibility & Fees
Eligibility requirement of participants: The course is open to faculty in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and other relevant disciplines from AICTE-approved engineering colleges and other higher educational institutions. Scientists and practising engineers from research organizations and industries are also eligible to apply. Applicants with some familiarity in dynamics and control would be preferred. Selected applicants will be informed over email.
Maximum number of participants that can be accommodated:
Fees:
- Faculty – ₹1000
- Others – ₹5000
“The registration fee will be refunded for the first 30 faculty participants from AICTE colleges once they attend and complete the training program”.
Click here to download the Sponsorship Certificate format.
Click here to submit your sponsorship certificate and other details.
Certification
Criteria: Attending all the sessions and submitting the assignments, if any.
Certificate template:
M. MANOJ –
Tha good jop
M. MANOJ –
Good work jop
Saddam Hussain –
It is good