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Formation Control
Task Manager
Dr. Fred Y. Hadaegh
 Dr. Hadaegh received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He joined the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology in 1984, where he is a Senior Research Scientist, the supervisor of the Guidance and Control Analysis Group, and manager of the Distributed Spacecraft Technology Program. He is a Fellow of IEEE and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He is a recipient of, NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal, NASA's Exceptional Service Medal and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Award of Excellence for his contributions to Flight Validation of Autonomous Rendezvous in Earth Orbit. His research contributions are in mathematical modeling of uncertain systems, system identification, control of large space structures, and optimal estimation and autonomous control of formation flying of space systems.
Team Members
Dr. Scott R. Ploen (Formation Dynamics
and Modeling)
Dr. Scott R. Ploen is a Staff Engineer in the Guidance and Control
Analysis Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received his
B.S. in Bioengineering (with honors) from the Department of Applied
Mechanics and Engineering Sciences (AMES) at the University of
California, San Diego in 1991. He received both his M.S. (in 1994)
and Ph.D. (in 1997) from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Ploen's
research interests include geometric methods in mechanics, multi-body
dynamics, robotics, and nonlinear geometric control theory. He is
currently a visiting lecturer at UC Irvine and is a member of IEEE,
ASME, AIAA, ASEE, and SIAM.
Dr. A. Behcet Acikmese (Formation Control
and Estimation)
 Dr. Behcet Acikmese is a senior member of the Guidance and Control Analysis Group at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He received his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, and his PhD in Aerospace Engineering, both degrees from Purdue University. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Purdue University before joining JPL. His research interests include robust and nonlinear control theory, optimal control, model predictive control (MPC), convex optimization and linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) in guidance, control and estimation, and real-time optimization.
He is currently developing guidance, control, and estimation algorithms for formation flying spacecraft and distributed networked systems, proximity operations around asteroids and comets, and Mars and the Moon landing, as well as developing and implementing interior point methods and multiparametric programming algorithms for the onboard real-time numerical solution of convex programming problems. Dr. Acikmese’s current research developed a fundamental result, known as “lossless convexification,” that provides the solution of a general class of nonconvex optimal control problems via convex optimization methods instead of intractable nonconvex optimization techniques. This discovery has enabled a number of key technological innovations at JPL in the area of powered descent guidance for planetary landing.
Dr. Daniel P. Scharf (Formation Guidance
and Control)
Daniel Scharf is a Senior Engineer in the Guidance and Control Analysis Group at JPL. His work focuses on multi-spacecraft guidance, estimation, and control, adaptive and distributed control, and astrodynamics with 40+ publications in these areas. He is currently the Lead Engineer for TPF-I Formation Flying, including the 6DOF, multi-robot Formation Control Testbed. He was the Deputy Cluster Flight Manager for a DARPA F6 team and has also been the PI for a multi-year internal R&D effort focused on formation estimation, communication, and sensing, and responsible for designing and implementing (i) multi-stage controllers for optical delay lines in formation interferometers and (ii) robust adaptive controllers for the AFRL-sponsored MACE II flight experiment aboard the International Space Station. He holds a B.S.E.M. from the Univ. of Minnesota in Aerospace Engineering and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the Univ. of Michigan. He is a member of IEEE and a Senior Member of AIAA.
Prof. R.S. Smith (Formation
Control and Estimation)
University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB)
Professor Smith joined the faculty at UCSB in 1990, coming from a background in both industrial and government laboratory research.
Known as an experimentalist and design engineer as well as a theorist, Dr. Smith's research is broadly based upon feedback control
systems. His current interests focus on the identification and control of uncertain systems, particularly the relationship between
experimental data and theoretical models; design methodologies for uncertain constrained nonlinear systems; and distributed estimation,
communication and control systems. On the applications side, he has applied these ideas to a variety of experimental testbeds including,
process control, automotive and marine engine systems, flexible space structures, aeromaneuvering Mars entry vehicles, formation flying
of spacecraft, magnetically levitated bearings, and semiconductor fabrication facilities. He has been a long time consultant to the Jet
Propulsion laboratory on guidance, navigation and control aspects of interplanetary and deep space science spacecraft. He is a senior
member of IEEE and AIAA, and a member of SIAM and NZAC.
Prof. P.K.C. Wang (Formation
Control and Guidance)
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Paul K.C. Wang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1955 and 1956,
respectively. He earned the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960. He has been a member of
the UCLA Electrical Engineering Department faculty since 1967. Prof. Wang is an IEEE Senior Life Member. He is also a member of the Society
of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Mathematical Society, and the
American Physical Society.
Linh Phan
Linh Phan received his B.S. in Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley
in 1993 and his M.S. in Aerospace Engineering at the University of
Southern California in 1998. He is currently a member of the Guidance
and Control Analysis Group.
Lars Blackmore
Lars Blackmore received his PhD in Control and Estimation in 2007 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was supervised by Prof. Brian Williams.
Lars has an MEng in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cambridge (UK) where his thesis was supervised by Prof. Keith Glover. Lars' research interests include guidance, control and estimation under stochastic uncertainty, with applications in planetary landing, formation flight and autonomous systems. Lars' previous research experience includes projects with the McLaren Formula One Racing Team, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the JPL Advanced Robotic Controls Group and Airbus
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