Invited Speaker: Professor J. Karl Hedrick
             Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

This talk will discuss the results of several research projects at Berkeley concerning vehicle automation, autonomy and collaboration. The first project was the design of an automated highway system, in particular the longitudinal control of tightly spaced “platoons” of vehicles. Issues of “string stability”, i.e. the attenuation of disturbances to the platoon will be discussed. The next project involved the control of multiple surface ships in order to create a floating aircraft runway. This was part of the “Mobile Off-Shore Base” program. The third project concerned the control of multiple unmanned helicopters, this project required the generalization of “string stability” to “mesh stability” since the helicopters are capable of 3-D motion. Finally I will discus our current project on collaborative control of unmanned aircraft. In this project the emphasis is less on formation control and more on distributed collaboration among multiple unmanned vehicles that are capable of vehicle-to-vehicle communication. The ability to have a single human command multiple vehicles at a very high level will be discussed. Experimental results from all of these projects will be presented.

About the Speaker:

Professor Hedrick is the James Marshall Wells Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on the application of advanced control theory to a wide variety of vehicle dynamic systems including automotive, aircraft and ocean vehicles. He is currently the Director of Berkeley’s Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory as well as the PI of the Office of Naval Research center at Berkeley, the Center for the Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles. He served as the Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at UC Berkeley from 1999-2004.

He served as the Director of the University of California PATH Research Center, a multi-disciplinary research program located at the Richmond Field Station from 1997-2003. PATH conducts research in a variety of advanced transportation areas including advanced vehicle control systems, advanced traffic management and information systems and technology leading to an automated highway system.

He has been awarded a number of honors including, ASME, Dynamic Systems and Control Division’s Outstanding Investigator Award, 2000, ASME, DSM&C Journal’s Best Paper Award (1983&2001), IEEE Transactions on Control Systems and Technology’s Outstanding Paper Award (1998), and the American Automatic Control Council’s O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award (2003).

Location: CEE Conference Room, Phillips Hall 6^th Floor
          The George Washington University, 801, 22nd ST, NW, Wash. DC 20052
Time: Friday, May 12, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM