The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania received a $500,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems on February 15, 2021 to support research titled "CAREER: TOWARDS A THEORY OF ROBUST LEARNING & CONTROL FOR SAFETY-CRITICAL AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS" through January 31, 2026. This award will fund research under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA #47.041) to develop a theoretical framework for robust learning...
This $300,664 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award to Lehigh University will fund research to advance aerial robotic capabilities for the manipulation and transportation of flexible objects such as cables, rods, hoses, and plastic sheets. The research aims to develop a modular control architecture that integrates adaptive control and reinforcement learning to enable aerial robots to stably and efficiently transport these types of flexible...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award, under the NSF Engineering (CFDA 47.041) program, focuses on advancing the individualization capabilities of manufacturing systems. The project aims to integrate "intelligent products" into the production process to enable more customized and personalized manufacturing. Key objectives include: (1) understanding the relationship between customer/manufacturing requirements and intelligent...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a 3-year, $289,495 Project Grant to The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to develop an integrated materials-manufacturing-controls framework for improving the efficiency and resilience of manufacturing systems. The research will focus on enhancing the understanding of the interactions between raw material properties, manufacturing processes, and process control to enable more integrated and...
The Pennsylvania State University received a five-year, $556,586 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation. The award funds a research project titled "CAREER: Consideration of Manufacturability in Early Stage Design for Additive Manufacturing" under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA #47.041). The project aims to develop new design methodologies and tools to incorporate manufacturability considerations earlier in...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $300,000 Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to The Pennsylvania State University, doing business as Penn State, to conduct research on expanding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing. The project focuses on developing deep clustering and generative modeling techniques to identify geometric similarities between new part designs and existing designs to improve...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award provides $581,320 in funding to the University of Vermont (UVM) over a 5-year period from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2029. The research project, titled "A Universal Framework for Safety-Aware Data-Driven Control and Estimation", aims to develop a framework for the simultaneous design of control policies and safety measures for complex systems like robotics and power systems using data-driven...
The Pennsylvania State University received a five-year, $604,113 National Science Foundation Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to support research titled "CAREER: PHOTONIC INTEGRATED GUIDED-WAVE-DRIVEN METASURFACES" from April 1, 2021 through March 31, 2026. The NSF Engineering program seeks to improve quality of life and economic strength by fostering innovation and excellence in engineering research and education. This Project Grant will fund Penn State...
The National Science Foundation awarded a $652,025 Project Grant to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania for research titled "CAREER: INTEGRATING INFORMATION THEORY WITH DATA-DRIVEN MECHANICS: TOWARD PREDICTIVE MODELING OF MATERIAL BEHAVIOR FAR FROM EQUILIBRIUM." The grant is funded under the NSF's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to support innovative engineering research and education improving quality of life and economic strength. The University of Pennsylvania will...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program awarded a 5-year, $589,527 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) on June 1, 2024. The grant supports research to develop set-based dynamic modeling and control frameworks for improving the safety and reliability of thermal management systems in complex energy systems. Key objectives include: Create set-based modeling and control techniques to account for the uncertain behaviors of...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering awarded a 5-year, $626,006 CAREER grant to The Pennsylvania State University, doing business as Penn State, to support research that enables dynamic modeling, control, and design for next-generation autonomous aerial systems with enhanced capabilities and operational efficiency. The project aims to establish a foundational framework that could revolutionize the entire lifecycle of autonomous systems, from production to operation, including the ability to learn and adapt over time. Key components include developing a reduced-order modeling method with physics-data infusion, resolving modeling challenges for morphing vehicles, and addressing the control co-design problem as a complex, high-dimensional optimization. The research advances will be integrated with comprehensive training and educational initiatives to foster a strong engineering workforce. This project under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) seeks to prompt a paradigm shift in the control co-design of future autonomous systems through innovative modeling and optimization techniques.