Research

This page outlines our research directions. We refine the descriptions from time to time as our work develops.

Overview

Our group develops control theory and experimental validation for safety-critical systems, with applications in robotics and mobility. We focus on nonlinear dynamics and constrained systems in real environments, aiming to jointly ensure safety and performance in controller design.

Research themes

1. Safety-critical control

With the spread of autonomous driving, drones, and related technologies, control methods with explicit safety guarantees are increasingly important. We study controller design based on ideas such as control barrier functions and passivity, enforcing state and input constraints while preserving stability and safety. We also build robust control approaches that account for disturbances and model uncertainty, and we verify effectiveness through hardware experiments.

2. Rigid-body attitude control and applications

Attitude motion of a rigid body is described by nonlinear dynamics on the rotation group, which makes control both theoretically rich and practically relevant. We develop attitude control methods that respect geometric structure on groups such as SE(3) and SO(3) to obtain singularity-free, consistent feedback designs. A central focus is attitude synchronization and tracking for multirotors and related aerial platforms, while spacecraft and other vehicles remain an important part of the application scope where the same geometric viewpoint applies.

3. Wheeled drones (flight with contact and rolling)

A distinctive theme in our lab is drones equipped with wheels, combining aerial motion with contact and ground locomotion. These systems involve nonholonomic constraints, contact forces, and hybrid dynamics, and require approaches beyond classical multirotor control. We combine tools such as model predictive control, disturbance observers, and passivity-based methods to enable behaviors including wall following, obstacle avoidance, and infrastructure inspection. This includes system development aimed at inspection of bridges and built structures.