This newly formed laboratory brings together ongoing as well as new research topics in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. This is our basic mission:

Cost and safety will drive new control configurations: New concepts are difficult to justify unless cost and/or safety are significantly impacted by new developments.

Autonomy will increase in future systems: Future autonomous vehicles will gather information of all kinds, perform dangerous missions such as airborne search and rescue, and make air defense less costly both in dollars and human lives.

Avionics is software-driven: Software is the primary means by which modern avionics systems are created.

Communications The importance and prevalence of communications issues in the aerospace industry will be the topic of a future focus in the ICE Lab. Look for new faculty and projects in this area in the future.

• Boppe, C. (boppe@MIT.EDU)
• Deyst, J.
• Feron, E.
• Li, Z. W. (zwli@MIT.EDU)
• Paduano, J. D.

• Alexander M. Budge (ambudge@MIT.EDU)
• Bertrand Delcaire (delcaire@MIT.EDU)
• Gael Desilles (desilles@MIT.EDU)
• Eric Durand (durand@MIT.EDU)
• Emilio Frazzoli (frazzoli@MIT.EDU)
• Vladislav Gavrilets (gavrick@MIT.EDU)
• Sean P. George (segeorge@MIT.EDU)
• Richard P Kornfeld (kornfeld@MIT.EDU)
• Lawrence K. McGovern (lmcgovern@draper.com)
• Jae-Hyuk Oh (hyuk@MIT.EDU)
• Nicolas Pujet (pujet@MIT.EDU)
• Christopher Sanders (sanders@MIT.EDU)
• Arkadiy Turevskiy (arkasha@MIT.EDU)
• Jerry M Wohletz (jwohletz@MIT.EDU)

Control Design and Evaluation

Reducing cost and increasing the safety of flight control systems and flight test.

Traditional modeling, analysis, and design of vehicle control systems will continue to be important disciplines in aerospace engineering, requiring well-trained engineers with hands-on knowledge of aerospace systems . However, the relative maturity of control practices in industry makes new concepts difficult to justify unless cost and/or safety are significantly impacted by new developments.

Projects:

Automation of Flight Control Design
High-Performance Bounded Control
In-Flight Robustness Evaluation
Reconfigurable Control
Real Time Flutter Boundary Estimation

Autonomy, Automated Decision, and UAVs

Making things think for themselves, fly without pilots, and help aerospace operators make decisions.

Autonomy, as distinct from automation, is the ability of a system to adjust to unforeseen events, to assimilate real-time information into a coherent structure, and to use this information for decision making or decision aiding. Future autonomous vehicles will gather information of all kinds, perform dangerous missions such as airborne search and rescue, and make air defense less costly both in dollars and human lives.

Automation will also play an important role in aiding human decisions, by assimilating large and diverse information sets and creating a coherent situation assessment to airline operators, strategic commanders, and pilots.

Projects:

Advanced Ballistic Control Actuation Schemes
Aerial Robotics
Air Traffic Conflict Resolution
Airline Dynamics and Control
Airport Dynamics and Control
Autonomous Vehicle Control
Command and Optimization of Multi-Vehicle Systems
Micro-UAV Propulsion
Wide Area Surveillance Projectile (WASP)

Reliable Software Engineering

Developing the theory and practice of reliable software generation, validation, and implementation.

Software is the primary means by which modern avionics systems are created. The hardware of these systems is becoming standardized, consisting of sensing, processing and actuation or human interface sites, all interconnected by digital buses. Most of the diversity in the system is embodied in the software. The increasing trend toward greater dependence upon software, both onboard and external to vehicles, is demonstrated by the rapidly increasing proportion of systems costs which are now expended for software.

Projects:

Analytical Redundancy
Avionics Systems Development for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Data Fusion for Enhanced Safety
Real-time Optimization Algorithms for Control
Real-time Software Productivity
Reliable Software Generation and Validation
Single Antenna GPS Based Attitude Determination