Marco Pavone
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Assistant Professor Director, Autonomous Systems Laboratory Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010 Email: [last name]@stanford.edu Phone: (650) 723 4432 |
Note (05 Jan 2013): Our project in collaboration with JPL/Caltech and MIT on microgravity rovers for Phobos exploration is receiving some media attention. This note is to make clear that our project represents technology development work at (very) low TRL, to explore and improve possibilities, not a proposed/planned/approved mission to Phobos.
Dr. Marco Pavone is an Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, where he also holds courtesy appointments in the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering and in the Information Systems Laboratory. He is a Research Affiliate at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology. Before joining Stanford, he was a Research Technologist within the Robotics Section at JPL. He received a Ph.D. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. Dr. Pavone’s areas of expertise lie in the fields of controls and robotics.
Dr. Pavone is the Director of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL). The goal of ASL is the development of methodologies for the analysis, design, and control of autonomous systems, with a particular emphasis on large-scale robotic networks and autonomous aerospace vehicles. The lab combines expertise from control theory, robotics, optimization, and operations research to develop the theoretical foundations for networked autonomous systems operating in uncertain, rapidly-changing, and potentially adversarial environments. Theoretical insights are then used to devise practical, computationally-efficient, and provably-correct algorithms for field deployment. Applications include robotic transportation networks, sensor networks, agile control of spacecraft during proximity operations, and mobility platforms for extreme planetary environments (such as outgassing irregular satellites). Collaborations with NASA centers are a key component of the research portfolio.
Dr. Pavone is a recipient of a NASA Early Career Faculty award, a Hellman Faculty Scholar Award, and was named NASA NIAC Fellow in 2011. At JPL, Dr. Pavone worked on the end-to-end optimization of the mission architecture for the Mars sample return mission. He has designed control algorithms for formation flying that have been successfully tested on board the International Space Station.
You can read about the lab research topics in the research section, or read some of our papers.
Spotlight
NASA has awarded our 3-year proposal entitled: “Algorithmic Foundations for Real-Time and Dependable Spacecraft Motion Planning”. Click here for the announcement.
Our project on spacecraft/rover hybrids was the spotlight on the NASA OCT's frontpage. The article can be found here.
Videos of the tests in space of our formation flying algorithms can be found here.
News
Jan, 3, 2013: Our work on robotic platforms for small Solar system bodies is making again the media rounds! See, for example, NBC, Stanford News, Popular Science, The Verge, Slashdot, Huffington Post, The Register, and Times of India. Project website. Animation of mission architecture.
Nov. 17: Our paper about mission architectures for the exploration of low-gravity bodies will appear at the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference.
Nov. 8: Our proposal about “Enabling Nanosat Mobility and Autonomy for Small Bodies Exploration” has been awarded by the NASA Center Innovation Fund.
Oct. 8: We submitted to NASA the final report about mobility platforms for the exploration of small Solar system bodies.
Oct. 5: We completed a book chapter about UAV routing in dynamic environments for the Springer Handbook of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
Sep. 24: We submitted two papers to ACC 2013, one about stochastic optimal control with risk constraints, and the other one about “rebalancing rebalancers” in mobility-on-demand systems.
Sep. 17, 2012: We submitted a paper about internally-actuated rovers to ICRA 2013.
Aug. 16, 2012: Our abstract about mobility platforms for the exploration of small Solar System bodies has been accepted by the 2012 IEEE Aerospace Conference.
Aug 14, 2012: I am a recipient of the NASA Early Career Faculty award.
Recent and Upcoming Travels and Talks
IEEE Aerospace Conference 2013, Mar 2 - Mar 9, 2013, Big Sky, MT
SETI Institute, Feb 12, 2012, Mountain View, CA
IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Dec 10 - Dec 13, 2012, Maui, HI
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Dec 5, 2012, San Francisco, CA
NASA Technology Days, Nov 28 - Nov 30, 2013, Cleveland, OH
Center for Information and Systems Engineering, Boston University, Oct 26, 2012, Boston, MA
Draper Laboratory, Oct 25, 2012, Boston, MA
Aurora Flight Sciences, Oct 25, 2012, Boston, MA
Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, MIT, Oct 24, 2012, Boston, MA
SMART Centre, Aug 7 - Aug 28, 2012, Singapore
Workshop on the future of aerospace controls and decision-making, Jun 11 - Jun 12, 2012, Atlanta, GA
NASA Ames, May 29, 2012, Moffett Field, CA
Contact
Stanford University, Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics
William F. Durand Building, Rm. 261
496 Lomita Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-4035