Randal W. Beard received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, in 1991, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1993, the M.S. degree in mathematics in 1994, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1995, all from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. Since 1996, he has been with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, where he is currently a professor. In 1997 and 1998, he was a Summer Faculty Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. In 2006-2007 he was a research associate at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin AFB, FL.

His primary research focus is autonomous control of micro unmanned air vehicles and multiple vehicle coordination and control. He is a senior member of the IEEE, a senior member of AIAA, and is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Control Systems Magazine and for the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems. In 1998 and 2004 he was voted the outstanding teacher in the BYU Electrical and Computer Engineering Department by graduating seniors, and in 2002 he received the Outstanding Professor award from the BYU Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. In 2004 he received the Young Scholar award,  in 2006 he received the Technology Transfer award, and in 2009 he received the Karl G. Maeser Research and Creative Arts award, all from Brigham Young University.

New book published by Princeton University Press:

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9632.html

Project files, lecture materials, and other resources at http://uavbook.byu.edu.

Winter 2012

• ECEn 774 / ME 734.  Nonlinear Control Theory

Fall 2011

• ECEn 483 / ME 431.  Feedback control of dynamic systems
• ECEn 671.  Mathematical methods in signals and systems

Other courses that I have taught.

Vehicle Testbed

Tailsitter

Path Planning

Trajectory Following

Laser Range Finder

Optic Flow Sensor

Kestrel Autopilot

Target Geolocation

Target Prosecution

Road Following

Cooperative Rendezvous

Cooperative Perimeter Monitoring

Cooperative Consensus Seeking

Cooperative Orbiting

Vision Based Guidance of MAVs

Unmanned Air Vehicles

Consensus

Cooperative Control

Spacecraft Formation Flying

Hamilton Jacobi Equations

Robot Soccer

Others

Publication preprints are available upon request.

Books

Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, Distributed Consensus in Multi-Vehicle Cooperative Control, Communication and Control Engineering Series, Springer Verlag, New York, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-84800-014-8.

Vision Based Guidance of MAVs

Journal and Book Chapters

• Joe Egbert, Randal W. Beard, “Low-Altitude Road Following Using Strap-down Cameras on Miniature Air Vehicles” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, (in review). egbertbeard08.pdf

• Ryan S. Holt, Randal W. Beard, “Vision-Based Road-Following Using Proportional Navigation” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, (in review).holtbeard08.pdf

• David L. Johansen, James K. Hall, Clark N. Taylor, Randal W. Beard, “Stabilization of Video from Miniature Air Vehicles for Target Localization,” AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, (to appear).johansenhallbeardtaylor08.pdf

• D. Blake Barber, Stephen Griffiths, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Autonomous Landing of Miniature Aerial Vehicles,” AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, vol. 4, no. 5 May, 2007, p. 770-784.barbergriffithsmclainbeard07.pdf

• D. Blake Barber, Joshua D. Redding, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, Clark N. Taylor, “Vision-based Target Geo-location using a Fixed-wing Miniature Air Vehicle,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, vol. 47, no. 4, December, 2006, p. 361-382.barberreddingmclainbeardtaylor06.pdf

Conference Articles

• Huili Yu, Randal W. Beard, Jeffrey Byrne, “Vision-based Local Multi-Resolution Mapping and Path Planning for Miniature Air Vehicles,” Proceedings of the American Control Conference, St. Louis, MO, June 2009, (to appear). yubeardbyrne09.pdf

• Jeffrey Saunders, Randal W. Beard, “Reactive Vision Based Obstacle Avoidance with Camera Field of View Constraints,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, Honolulu, Hawaii, August 2008. saundersbeard08.pdf

• Jeffrey Saunders, Randal W. Beard, “Micro Air Vehicle Moving Target Tracking in Wind Using Strap-down Camera,” American Control Conference, Seattle, WA, June 2008, p. 3863-3868.

• Jeffrey Saunders, Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, “Obstacle Avoidance Using Circular Paths,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, Hilton Head, South Carolina, August 2007.

• Randal W. Beard, J. Will Curtis, Martin Eilders, Johnny Evers, James R. Cloutier, “Vision Aided Proportional Navigation for Micro Air Vehicles,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, Hilton Head, South Carolina, August 2007.

• Joseph Egbert, Randal W. Beard, “Road Following Control Constraints for Low Altitude Miniature Air Vehicles,” American Control Conference, New York, New York, July 2007, p. 353-358.

• D. Blake Barber, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Vision Based Precision Landing of Fixed-wing MAVs,” Infotech@Aerospace, Rohnert Park, CA, May, 2007.

• Brandon Call, Randal W. Beard, Clark Taylor, “Obstacle Avoidance for Unmanned Air Vehicles Using Image Feature Tracking,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, Keystone CO, 2006, paper no. AIAA-2006-6541.

• Joshua Redding, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, Clark Taylor, “Vision-based Target Localization from a Fixed-wing Miniature Air Vehicle,” American Control Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2006, p. 2862-2867.

• Bryce B. Ready, Clark N. Taylor, Randal W. Beard, “A Kalman filter Based Method for Creation of Super-resolved Mosaicks”, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Orlando, FL, May, 2006, p. 3417-3422.

• Morgan Quigley, Michael A. Goodrich, Steve Griffths, Andrew Eldredge, RandalW. Beard, “Target Acquisition, Localization, and Surveillance Using a Fixed-Wing Mini-UAV and Gimbaled Camera,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2005.

• D.J. Lee, R.W. Beard, P.C. Merrell, and P. Zhan “See and Avoidance Behaviors for Autonomous Navigation,” SPIE Optics East, Robotics Technologies and Architectures, Mobile Robot XVII, vol. 5609-05, Philadelphia, PA USA, October 25-28, 2004.

• P. Zhan, D.J. Lee, and R.W. Beard, “Solving Correspondence Problem Using 1-D Signal Matching,” SPIE OpticsEast, Robotics Technologies and Architectures, Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XXII, vol. 5608-24, Philadelphia, PA USA, October 25-28, 2004.

• P.C. Merrell, D.J. Lee, and R.W. Beard, “Statistical Analysis of Multiple Optical Flow Values for Estimation of Unmanned Air Vehicles Height Above Ground”, SPIE OpticsEast, Robotics Technologies and Architectures, Mobile Robot XVII, vol. 5608-28, Philadelphia, October 25-28, 2004.

Unmanned Air Vehicles

Journal and Book Chapters

• Randal W. Beard, “State Estimation for Micro Air Vehicles,” in Innovations in Intelligent Machines I, edited by Jovaan S. Chahl, Lakhmi C. Jain, Akiki Mizutani, Mika Sato-Ilic, Studies in Computational Intelligence (SCI), vol. 70, Springer Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2007, p. 173-199.state_estimation.pdf

• Derek R. Nelson, Blake Barber, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Vector Field Path Following for Miniature Air Vehicles,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 23, no. 3, June, 2007, p 519-529. nelsonbarbermclainbeard07.pdf

• Stephen Griffiths, Jeff Saunders, Andrew Curtis, Blake Barber, Tim McLain, Randy Beard, “Obstacle and Terrain Avoidance for Miniature Aerial Vehicles,” Chapter 7 in Advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: State of the art and the road to autonomy, edited by Kimon P. Valavanis, Springer Verlag, 2007. griffithsscmb05.pdf

• Stephen Griffiths, Jeff Saunders, Andrew Curtis, D. Blake Barber, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Maximizing miniature aerial vehicles,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, vol. 13, no. 3, 2006 p. 34-43. griffithsetal06.pdf

• Randal W. Beard, D.J. Lee, Morgan Quigley, Sarita Thakoor, Steve Zornetzer, “A New Approach to Observation of Descent and Landing of Future Mars Mission Using Bioinspired Technology Innovations,” AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, vol. 2, no. 1, January, 2005, p. 65-91. beardleequigleythakoor05.pdf

• Randal Beard, Derek Kingston, Morgan Quigley, Deryl Snyder, Reed Christiansen, Walt Johnson, Timothy McLain, Mike Goodrich, “Autonomous Vehicle Technologies for Small Fixed Wing UAVs,” AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, vol. 2, no. 1, January, 2005, p. 92-108. beardkingstonquigleysnyder05.pdf

• Erik P. Anderson, Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, “Real Time Dynamic Trajectory Smoothing for Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles,” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 13, no. 3, May, 2005, p. 471-477. andersonbeardmclain05.pdf

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Trajectory Tracking for Unmanned Air Vehicles with Velocity and Heading Rate Constraints,” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 12, no. 5, September, 2004, p. 706-716. renbeard04f.pdf

Conference Articles

• Randal W. Beard, “A Class of Flight Trajectories for Tracking Ground Targets with Micro Air Vehicles,” The 15th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, Athens, Greece, June, 2007.

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, D. Blake Barber, Nathan B. Knoebel, “An Overview of MAV Research at Brigham Young University,” NATO Research and Technology Organization AVT-146 Symposium on Platform Innovations and System Integration for Unmanned Air, Land, and Sea Vehicles, Florence, Italy, paper number 27, May, 2007.

• Nathan B. Knoebel, Stephen R. Osborne, Deryl O. Snyder, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, Andrew M. Eldredge “Preliminary Modeling, Control, and Trajectory Design for Miniature Autonomous Tailsitters,” AIAA Conference on Guidance,Navigation, and Control, Keystone CO, 2006, paper no. AIAA-2006-6713.

• Randal W. Beard, Chengyu Cao, Naira Hovakimyan, “An L1 Adaptive Pitch Controller for Miniature Air Vehicles,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, Keystone CO, 2006, paper no. AIAA-2006-6777.

• Nathan B. Knoebel, Stephen R. Osborne, Joshua S. Matthews , Randal W. Beard, “Computationally Simple Model Reference Adaptive Control for Miniature Air Vehicles,” American Control Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2006, p. 5978-5983.

• Joshua S. Matthews, Nathan B. Knoebel, Stephen R. Osborne, Randal W. Beard, “Adaptive Backstepping Control for Miniature Air Vehicles,” American Control Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2006, p. 5972-5977.

• Derek R. Nelson, D. Blake Barber, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Vector Field Path Following for Small Unmanned Air Vehicles,” American Control Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2006, p. 5788-5794.

• J. Saunders, B. Call, A. Curtis, R. Beard, T. McLain, “Static and Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance in Miniature Air Vehicles,” Proceedings of Infotech@Aerospace, Arlington, VA, September, 2005, paper no. AIAA-2005-6950.

• Derek B. Kingston, Randal W. Beard, “Real-Time Attitude and Position Estimation for Small UAVs Using Low-Cost Sensors,” AIAA 3rd Unmanned Unlimited Systems Conference and Workshop, Chicago, Il, September, 2004, Paper no. AIAA-2004-6488.

• Tim McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Unmanned Air Vehicle Testbed for Cooperative Control Experiments,” American Control Conference, Boston, MA, June, 2004, p. 5327-5331.

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Constrained Nonlinear Tracking Control For Small Fixed-wing Unmanned Air Vehicles,” American Control Conference, Boston, MA, June, 2004, p. 4663-4668.

• Derek Kingston, Randal Beard, Timothy McLain, Michael Larsen, Wei Ren, “Autonomous Vehicle Technologies for Small Fixed Wing UAVs,” AIAA 2nd Unmanned Unlimited Systems, Technologies, and Operations-Aerospace, Land, and Sea Conference and Workshop & Exhibit, San Diego, CA, September, 2003, Paper no. AIAA-2003-6559.

• Erik P. Anderson, Randal W. Beard, “An Algorithmic Implementation of Constrained Extremal Control for UAVs,” AIAA Guidance and Control Conference, Monterey, CA, August 2002, AIAA Paper no. 2002-4470.

Consensus

Journal and Book Chapters

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, Ella Atkins, “Information Consensus and its Applications in Multi-vehicle Cooperative Control,” IEEE Control Systems Magazine, vol. 27, no. 2, April, 2007, p.71-82. renbeardatkins07.pdf

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Consensus Seeking in Multi-agent Systems Using Dynamically Changing Interaction Topologies,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 50, no. 5, May, 2005, p. 655-661. renbeard05.pdf

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Formation Feedback Control for Multiple Spacecraft via Virtual Structures,” IEE Proceedings-Control Theory and Applications, vol. 151, no. 3, May, 2004, p. 357-368. renbeard04e.pdf

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “A Decentralized Scheme for Spacecraft Formation Flying via the Virtual Structure Approach,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 27, no. 1, January, 2004, p. 73-82. renbeard03c.pdf

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, “Coordination Variables and Consensus Building in Multiple Vehicle Systems,” Block Island Workshop on Cooperative Control, Editors Vijay Kumar, Naomi Leonard, A. Stephen Morse, Lecture Notes in Control and Information Systems, vol. 309, Springer-Verlag, p. 171-188, 2004. renbeardmclain03.pdf

Conference Articles

• David W. Casbeer, Randal W. Beard, A. Lee Swindlehurst, “Discrete Double Integrator Consensus with Perturbations,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Cancun, Mexico, December 2008, (to appear).

• Derek Kingston, Randal Beard, “Discrete-Time Average-Consensus under Switching Network Topologies,” American Control Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June, 2006, p. 3551-3556.

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, Derek B. Kingston, “Multi-agent Kalman Consensus with Relative Uncertainty,” American Control Conference, Portland, OR, MA, June, 2005, p. 1865-1870.

• Derek B. Kingston, Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Consensus Algorithms are Input-to-State Stable,” American Control Conference, Portland, OR, MA, June, 2005, p. 1686-1690.

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “A Survey of Consensus Problems in Multi-agent Coordination,” American Control Conference, Portland, OR, MA, June, 2005, p. 1859-1864.

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Consensus of Information Under Dynamically Changing Interaction Topologies,” American Control Conference, Boston, MA, June, 2004, p. 4939-4944.

• Randal W. Beard, Vahram Stepanyan, “Synchronization of Information in Distributed Multiple Vehicle Coordinated Control,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Maui, HA, December 2003, p. 2029-2034.

Cooperative Control

Journal and Book Chapters

• P. B. Sujit, Joel George, Randal W. Beard, “Multiple UAV Coalitions for a Search and Prosecute Mission” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, (in review).

• P. B. Sujit, Derek B. Kingston, Randal W. Beard, “Autonomous Forest Fire Monitoring System Using Multiple UAVs” in Autonomous Robots Research, Nova Publishers, (to appear). sujitkingstonbeard07.pdf

• Derek B. Kingston, Randal W. Beard, Ryan Holt, “Decentralized Perimeter Surveillance Using a Team of UAVs” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol 24, no. 6, December, 2008, 1394-1404. kingstonbeardholt07.pdf

• Derek B. Kingston, Randal W. Beard, “UAV Splay State Configuration for Moving Targets in Wind,” in Advances in Cooperative Control and Optimization, edited by Michael J. Hirsch, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Verlag, 2008.

• Derek Nelson, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Experiments in Cooperative Timing for Miniature Air Vehicles,” AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, vol. 4, no. 8, 2007, p. 956-967. nelsonmclainbeard05.pdf

• Randal Beard, Timothy McLain, Derek Nelson, Derek Kingston, “Decentralized Cooperative Aerial Surveillance using Fixed-Wing Miniature UAVs,” IEEE Proceedings: Special Issue on Multi-Robot Systems, vol. 94, no. 7, July, 2006, p. 1306-1324. beardmclainnelsonkingston06.pdf

• David W. Casbeer, Derek B. Kingston, Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, Sai-Ming Li, Raman Mehra, “Cooperative Forest Fire Surveillance Using a Team of Small Unmanned Air Vehicles,” International Journal of Systems Science, vol. 37, no. 6, May, 2006, p. 351-360. casbeerkbmlm06.pdf

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Coordination Variables, Coordination Functions, and Cooperative Timing Missions,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, & Dynamics, vol. 28, no. 1., January, 2005, p. 150-161. mclainbeard05.pdf

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, Michael Goodrich, Erik P. Anderson, “Coordinated Target Assignment and Intercept for Unmanned Air Vehicles,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol. 18, no. 6, December, 2002, p. 911-922. beardmclaingoodrichanderson02.pdf

Conference Articles

• Sujit P. Baliyarasimhuni, George, J. M., Randal W. Beard, “Multiple UAV Task Allocation using Particle Swarm Optimization,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, Honolulu, Hawaii, August 2008.

• Sujit P. Baliyarasimhuni, Randal W. Beard, “Multiple UAV Coalition Formation,” American Control Conference, Seattle, WA, June 2008, p. 2010-2015.

• P. B. Sujit, Derek Kingston, Randal W. Beard, “Cooperative Forest Fire Monitoring using Multiple UAVs,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, New Orleans, LA, December 2007.

• P. B. Sujit, Randal W. Beard, “Multiple MAV Task Allocation using Distributed Auctions,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, Hilton Head, South Carolina, August 2007.

• Sujit P. Baliyarasimhuni, Randal W. Beard, “Distributed Sequential Actions for Multiple UAV Task Allocation,” American Control Conference, New York, New York, July 2007, p. 3955-3960.

• Sujit P. Baliyarasimhuni, Randal W. Beard, “Cooperative Path Planning for Multiple UAVs Exploring an Unknown Region,” American Control Conference, New York, New York, July 2007, p. 347-352.

• Derek Kingston, Randal W. Beard, “UAV Splay State Configuration for Moving Targets,” Conference on Cooperative Control and Optimization, Gainesville, Florida, February, 2007.

• Sujit P. Baliyarasimhuni, Randal W. Beard, “Distributed Auctions for Multiple UAV Task Allocation,” Advances in Control and Optimization of Dynamical Systems, Bangalore, India, February, 2007.

• David W. Casbeer, A. Lee Swindlehurst, Randal W. Beard, “Connectivity in a UAV Multi-Static Radar Network,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, Keystone CO, 2006, paper no. AIAA-2006-6209.

• Ryan S. Holt, Joseph W. Egbert, Justin M. Bradley, Randal W. Beard, Clark N. Taylor, Timothy W. McLain, “Forest Fire Monitoring Using Multiple Unmanned Air Vehicles,” Eleventh Biennial USDA Forest Service Remote Sensing Applications Conference, Salt Lake City, April, 2006.

• Derek Kingston, Ryan Holt, Randal Beard, Timothy McLain, David Casbeer, “Decentralized Perimeter Surveillance Using a Team of UAVs,” Proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, San Francisco, CA, August, 2005, paper no. AIAA-2005-5853.

• David W. Casbeer, Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, Sai-Ming Li, Raman K. Mehra, “Forest Fire Monitoring Using Multiple Small Unmanned Air Vehicles,” American Control Conference, Portland, OR, MA, June, 2005, p. 3530-3535.

• Derek R. Nelson, Timothy W. McLain, Reed S. Christiansen, Randal W. Beard, David Johansen, “Initial Experiements in Cooperative Control of Unmanned Air Vehicles,” AIAA 3rd Unmanned Unlimited Systems Conference and Workshop, Chicago, Il, September, 2004, Paper no. AIAA-2004-6533.

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, “Multiple UAV Cooperative Search under Collision Avoidance and Limited Range Communication Constraints,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Maui, HA, December 2003, p. 25-30.

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Coordination Variables, Coordination Functions, and Cooperative Timing Missions,” American Control Conference, Denver, CO, 2003, p. 296-301.

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, Jed M. Kelsey, “Experimental Demonstration of Multiple Robot Cooperative Target Intercept,” AIAA Guidance and Control Conference, Monterey, CA, August 2002, AIAA Paper no. 2002-4678.

• Sai-Ming Li and Jovan D. Boskovic and Sanjeev Seereeram and Ravi Prasanth and Jayesh Amin and Raman K. Mehra and Randal Beard, “Autonomous Hierarchical Control of Multiple Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs),” American Control Conference, Anchorage, Alaska, May, 2002, p. 274-279.

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, Michael Goodrich, “Coordinated Target Assignment and Intercept for Unmanned Air Vehicles,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Washington DC, May, 2002, p. 2581-2586.

• Brett J. Young, Randal W. Beard, Jed M. Kelsey “A Control Scheme for Improving Multi-Vehicle Formation Maneuvers,” American Control Conference, , Arlington, VA, June 2001, p. 704-709. Finalist in the Best Student Paper Competition.

• Timothy McLain, Randal Beard, “Cooperative Rendezvous of Multiple Unmanned Air Vehicles,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, Denver, CO, Paper no. AIAA-2000-4369:AAO-37126, August 2000.

Spacecraft Formation Flying

Journal and Book Chapters

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Formation Feedback Control for Multiple Spacecraft via Virtual Structures,” IEE Proceedings-Control Theory and Applications, vol. 151, no. 3, May, 2004, p. 357-368. renbeard04e.pdf

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “A Decentralized Scheme for Spacecraft Formation Flying via the Virtual Structure Approach,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 27, no. 1, January, 2004, p. 73-82. renbeard03c.pdf

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal Beard, Brett Young, “A Decentralized Approach To Formation Maneuvers,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol. 19, no. 6, December, 2003, p. 933-941. lawtonbeardyoung04.pdf

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal W. Beard, “Attitude Regulation About a Fixed Rotation Axis,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 26, no. 2, March, 2003, p. 253-258. lawtonbeard03.pdf

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal W. Beard, “Synchronized Multiple Spacecraft Rotations,” Automatica, vol. 38, no. 8, August 2002, p. 1359-1364. lawtonbeard02.pdf

• Randal W. Beard, Jonathan Lawton, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “A Coordination Architecture for Spacecraft Formation Control,” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 9, no. 6, November 2001, p. 777-790. beardlawtonhadaegh01.pdf

• Christopher A. Bailey, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Fuel Saving Strategies for Dual Spacecraft Interferometry Missions,” Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, vol. 49, no. 3, July-September, 2001, p. 469-488. baileymclainbeard00a.pdf

• Randal W. Beard, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “Fuel Optimization for Unconstrained Rotation of Spacecraft Formations,” Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, vol. 47, no. 3, p. 259-273, July-December, 1999. beardhadaegh99c.pdf

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “Fuel Optimization for Constrained Rotation of Spacecraft Formations,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 23, no. 2, p. 339-0346, March-April, 2000. beardmclainhadaegh00.pdf

Conference Articles

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “A Decentralized Scheme for Spacecraft Formation Flying via the Virtual Structure Approach,” American Control Conference, Denver, CO, 2003, p. 1746-1751.

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, J. Willard Curtis, “Satisficing Control for Multi-agent Formation Maneuvers,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Las Vegas, NV, 2002, p. 2433-2438.

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Virtual Structure based Spacecraft Formation Control with Formation Feedback,” AIAA Guidance and Control Conference, Monterey, CA, August 2002, AIAA Paper no. 2002-4963.

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal W. Beard, “Model Independent Eigenaxis Maneuvers using Quaternion Feedback,” American Control Conference, Arlington, VA, June 2001, p. 2339-2344.

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal Beard, “Elementary Attitude Formation Maneuvers via Behavior-Based Control,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, Denver, CO, Paper no. AIAA-2000-4442:AAO-37144, August 2000.

• Chris Bailey, Timothy McLain, Randal Beard, “Fuel Saving Strategies for Separated Spacecraft Interferometry,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Denver, CO, Paper no. AIAA-2000-4441:AA0-37143, August 2000.

• Randal W. Beard, Jonathan Lawton, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “A Feedback Architecture for Formation Control,” American Control Conference, Chicago, IL, June, 2000, p. 4087-4091.

• Jonathan Lawton, Brett Young, Randal Beard, “A Decentralized Approach To Elementary Formation Maneuvers,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, San Fransico, CA, April, 2000.

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal Beard, “A Projection Approach to Spacecraft Formation Attitude Control,” 23rd Annual AAS Guidance and Control Conference, AAS 00-011, Breckenridge, Colorado, February, 2000.

• S. Seereeram, E. Li, B. Ravichandran, R. Mehra, R. Smith, R. Beard, “Multispacecraft Formation Initialization using Genetic Algorithm Techniques,” 23rd Annual AAS Guidance and Control Conference, AAS 00-033, Breckenridge, Colorado, February, 2000.

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal W. Beard, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “An Adaptive Control Approach to Satellite Formation Flying with Relative Distance Constraints,” American Control Conference, San Diego, CA, June, 1999, p. 1545-1549.

• Timothy W. McLain, Christopher A. Bailey, Randal W. Beard, “Synthesis and Experimental Testing of a Nonlinear Optimal Tracking Controller,” American Control Conference, San Diego, CA, June, 1999, p. 2847-2851.

• Randal W. Beard, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “Finite Thrust Control for Satellite Formation Flying with State Constraints,” American Control Conference, San Diego, CA, June, 1999, p. 4383-4387.

• Randal W. Beard, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “Fuel Optimized Rotation forSatellite Formations in Free Space,” American Control Conference, San Diego, CA, June, 1999, p. 2975-2979.

• Randal Beard, Wynn Stirling and Rick Frost, “A Hierarchical Coordination Scheme for Satellite Formation Initialization,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, AIAA paper #98-4225, p. 677-685, Boston, MA, 1998.

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, Fred Y. Hadaegh, “Fuel Equalized Retargeting for Separated Spacecraft Interferometry,” American Control Conference, Philadelphia, PA, p. 1580-1584, June, 1998.

• Randal W. Beard and Fred Y. Hadaegh, “Constellation Templates: An Approach to Autonomous Formation Flying,” World Automation Congress, Anchorage, Alaska, ISIAC p. 177.1-177.6, 1998.d

Satisficing Control

Journal and Book Chapters

• Wei Ren, Ji-Sang Sun, Randal Beard, Timothy McLain, “Experimental Validation of an Autonomous Control System on a Mobile Robot Platform,” IET Control Theory & Applications, vol. 1, no. 6, 2007, p. 1621-1629. rensunbeardmclain07.pdf

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Trajectory Tracking for Unmanned Air Vehicles with Velocity and Heading Rate Constraints,” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 12, no. 5, September, 2004, p. 706-716. renbeard04f.pdf

• J. Willard Curtis, Randal W. Beard, “A Complete Parameterization of CLF-Based Input-to-State Stabilizing Control Laws,” International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, vol 14, 2004, p. 1393-1420. curtisbeard04a.pdf

• J. Willard Curtis, Randal W. Beard, “Satisficing: A New Approach to Constructive Nonlinear Control,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 49, no. 7, July, 2004, p. 1090-1102. curtisbeard04.pdf

Conference Articles

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “Satisficing Approach to Human-in-the-Loop Safeguarded Control,” American Control Conference, Portland, OR, MA, June, 2005, p. 4985-4990.

• Josiel A. Gouvea, Fernando Lizarralde, Randal W. Beard, “Control of Passive Systems using the Satisficing Paradigm,” American Control Conference, Boston, MA, June, 2004, p. 1067-1072.

• Wei Ren, Randal W. Beard, “CLF-based Tracking Control for UAV Kinematic Models with Saturation Constraints,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Maui, HA, December 2003, p. 3924-3929.

• J. Willard Curtis, Randal W. Beard, “A Graphical Understanding of Lyapunov-based Nonlinear Control,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Las Vegas, NV, 2002, p. 2278-2283.

• J. Willard Curtis, Randal W. Beard, “Ensuring Stability of State-Dependent Riccati Equation Controllers via Satisficing,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Las Vegas, NV, 2002, p. 2645-2650.

• Brett Young, J. Willard Curtis, Randal W. Beard, “Nonlinear Robust Regulation Using the Satisficing Paradigm,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Orlando, FL, December 2001, p. 2791-2796.

• J. Willard Curtis, Randal W. Beard, “A Model-Predictive Satisficing Approach to a Nonlinear Tracking Problem,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Orlando, FL, December 2001, p. 491-495.

• Randal W. Beard, Brett J. Young, Wynn Stirling, “Nonlinear Regulation Using the Satisficing Paradigm,” American Control Conference, Arlington, VA, June 2001, p. 4258-4263.

Hamilton Jacobi Equations

Journal and Book Chapters

• Richard D. Abbott, Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Validation of a Synthesis Technique for the Optimal Control of an Electro-hydraulic Positioning System,” ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, vol. 123, September2001, p. 377-384. abbottmclainbeard01.pdf

• Randal Beard, Jacob Gunther, Jonathan Lawton, Wynn Stirling, “Nonlinear Projection Filter based on Galerkin Approximation,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, vol. 22, no. 2, March-April, p. 258-266, 1999. beardgunther98.pdf

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, “Successive Galerkin Approximation Algorithms for Nonlinear Optimal and Robust Control,”, International Journal of Control: Special Issue on Breakthroughs in the Control of Nonlinear Systems, vol. 71, no. 5, p. 717-743, 1998. beardmclain98.pdf

• Randal Beard, George Saridis, John Wen, “Approximate Solutions to the Time-Invariant Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman Equation,” Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, vol. 96, no. 3, March, p. 589-626, 1998. beardsaridiswen98.pdf

• Randal Beard, George Saridis, John Wen, “Suffcient Conditions for the Convergence of Galerkin Approximations to the Hamilton-Jacobi Equation,” Automatica, vol. 33, no. 12, p. 2159-2177, December, 1997. beardsaridiswen97.pdf

• Randal Beard, George Saridis, John Wen, “Improving the Performance of Stabilizing Controls for Nonlinear Systems,” IEEE Control Systems Magazine, vol. 16, no. 5, p. 27-35, October 1996. beardsaridiswen96.pdf

Conference Articles

• J. Willard Curtis, Randal W. Beard, “Successive Collocation: An Approximation to Optimal Nonlinear Control,” American Control Conference, Arlington, VA, June, 2001, p. 3481-3485.

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Nonlinear Robust Missile Autopilot Design Using Successive Galerkin Approximation,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, Paper no. AIAA-99-3997, Portland, OR, p. 384-391, 1999.

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, John T. Wen, “Successive Galerkin Approximation of the Isaacs Equation,” IFAC World Congress, Beijing, China, 1999.

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal W. Beard, Tim McLain, “Successive Galerkin Approximation of Nonlinear Optimal Attitude Control,” American Control Conference, San Diego, CA, June, 1999, p. 4373-4377.

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Nonlinear Optimal Control Design of a Missile Autopilot,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, AIAA paper #98-4321, p. 1209-1216, Boston, MA, 1998.

• Randal W. Beard, Timothy W. McLain, “A Practical Algorithm for Designing Nonlinear H-infinity Control Laws,” American Control Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 3742-3743, June, 1998.

• John D. Kenney, Wynn Sterling, Randy Beard, “Set-Valued Nonlinear Estimation Using the Galerkin Approximation,” American Control Conference, Philadelphia, PA, p. 3580-3584, June, 1998.

• Jonathan Lawton, Randal W. Beard, “Numerically Efficient Approximations to the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman Equation,” American Control Conference, Philadelphia, PA, p. 195-199, June, 1998.

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Nonlinear Optimal Control of an Underwater Robotic Vehicle,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Leuven, Belgium, p. 762-767, May 1998.

• Timothy W. McLain, Randal W. Beard, “Nonlinear Robust Control of an Electrohydraulic Positioning System,” International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, The Fluid Power and Systems Technology Division FPST v. 5, Anaheim, CA, 1998.

• Timothy W. McLain and Randal W. Beard, “Nonlinear Optimal Control of a Hydraulically Actuated Positioning System,” International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, The Fluid Power and Systems Technology Division FPST v. 4, p. 163-168, Dallas, TX, 1997.

• Jacob Gunther, Randal Beard, Jay Wilson, Travis Oliphant, Wynn Stirling, “Fast Nonlinear Filtering via Galerkin's Method,” American Control Conference, Albuquerque, NM, 1997.

• Randal Beard, George Saridis, John Wen, “Sufficient Conditions for the Convergence of Galerkin Approximations to the Hamilton-Jacobi Equation,” IFAC World Congress, Volume E, pp 347-352, San Francisco, 1996.

• Randal Beard, George Saridis, John Wen, “Computing Nonlinear Optimal Controls from Existing Stabilizing Controls,” Proceedings of the 4th IEEE Conference on Control Applications, p. 1160-1161, Albany, NY, September, 1995.

• Randal Beard, George Saridis, John Wen, “An Iterative Solution to the Finite-Time Linear Quadratic Optimal Feedback Control Problem,” Proceedings of the American Control Conference, p. 3921-3922, Seattle, WA, June 1995.

• Randal Beard, George N. Saridis, “A Cost Measure for Efficient Scheduling in Intelligent Machines,” Proceedings of the IEEE 8th International Symposium on Intelligent Control, Chicago, Illinois, p. 52-57, August, 1993.

Robot Soccer

• James K. Archibald, Randal W. Beard, “Robot Soccer for Undergraduate Students,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, vol. 11, no. 1, March, 2004, p. 70-75. archibaldbeard03.pdf

• Matthew A. Blake, Gerrit A. Sorensen, James K. Archibald, Randal W. Beard, “Human Assisted Capture-the-Flag in an Urban Environment,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, New Orleans, LA, April, 2004, p. 1167-1172.

• Walter H. Johnson, Rob Franklin, Randal W. Beard, James K. Archibald, “Effective Ball Handling and Control in Robot Soccer,” International Telemetering Conference, San Diego, CA, October, 2002, p. 461-469, Best undergraduate student paper award.

• Steven A. R. Olson, Chad S. Dawson, Jared Jacobson, James K. Archibald, Randal W. Beard, “Design and Development of an Autonomous Soccer-Playing Robot,” International Telemetering Conference, San Diego, CA, October, 2002, p. 684-691, Best graduate student paper award.

• Randal W. Beard and James K. Archibald and Steven A. Olson, “Robot Soccer as a Culminating Design Project for Undergraduates,” American Control Conference, Anchorage, Alaska, May, 2002, p. 1086-1091.

• Randal W. Beard, “Robot Soccer: An Ideal Senior Design Experience,” American Control Conference, Chicago, IL, June, 2000, p. 3975-3979.

Others

• Randal W. Beard, “Linear Operators with Application in Control and Signal Processing,” IEEE Control Systems Magazine, vol. 22, no. 2, April 2002, p. 69-79. beard02.pdf

Current Graduate Students

Liang (Solomon) Sun, PhD
Topic: Cooperative Control of UAVs
Email: solbuaa (at) gmail (dot) com

John Mcdonald, PhD
Topic: Vision based indoor flight using quadrotors
Email: jandkmacdonald (at) hotmail (dot) com

Peter Niedfeldt, PhD
Topic: Sensor guided flight
Email: pcniedfeldt (at) gmail (dot) com

Matt Argyle, PhD
Topic: Sensor guided flight
Email: matt (dot) argyle (at) gmail (dot) com

Eric Quist, PhD
Topic: Sense and avoid
Email: eric (dot) quist (at) gmail (dot) com

Laith Sahawneh, PhD
Topic: Sense and avoid for unmanned air vehicles
Email: laith20 (at) hotmail (dot) com

Kevin Meier, MS
Topic: Cooperative ground and air control
Email: kevin (dot) c (dot) meier (at) gmail (dot) com

Bryce Pincock, MS
Topic: GPS denied navigation
Email: bpincock (at) yahoo (dot) com

Everett Bryan, MS
Topic: GPS denied navigation
Email: eabryan (at) gmail (dot) com

Stephen Quebe, MS
Topic: Vision based navigation
Email: squebe (at) gmail (dot) com

Brandon Carrol, MS
Topic: Sensor directed flight
Email: ctnodnarb (at) hotmail (dot) com

Former Post Docs

P.B. Sujit, 2006-2008
Topic: Cooperative task assignment and path planning for UAVs
Current coordinates:
email: sujit (at) byu (dot) edu

Former PhD Students

Rajnikant Sharma, PhD, 2011
Dissertation: 
Current Coordinates: Post doc at Air Force Academy
Email: raj (dot) drdo (at) gmail (dot) com

Huili Yu, PhD, 2011
Dissertation: Vision-based Path Planning, Collision Avoidance, and Target Tracking for Unmanned Air and Ground Vehicles in Urban Environments.
Current Coordinates: Post doc at Boston University
Email: huiliyu (dot) yhl (at) gmail (dot) com

Jeff Saunders, PhD, 2009
Dissertation:  Obstacle Avoidance, Vision Automatic Tartget Tracking, and Task Allocation for Small Unmanned Air Vehicles
Current Coordinates: Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, AZ.
Email: saunders (dot) jeff (at) gmail (dot) com

David Casbeer, PhD, 2009
Dissertation: Decentralized Estimation in a Multi-Static UAV Radar Tracking System
Current coordinates: Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Vehicles Directorate, WPAFB
Email: David (dot) Casbeer (at) wpab (dot) af (dot) mil

Derek Kingston, PhD, 2007
Dissertation: Decentralized Control of Multiple UAVs for Perimeter and Target Surveillance
Current coordinates: Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Vehicles Directorate, WPAFB
Email: derek.kingston (at) gmail (dot) com

Wei Ren, PhD, 2004
Dissertation: Consensus Seeking, Formation Keeping, and Trajectory Tracking in Multiple Vehicle Cooperative Control
Current coordinates: University of California at Riverside
Email: ren (at) ee (dot) ucr (dot) edu 

J. Will Curtis, PhD, 2002
Dissertation: A Generalization of Sontag's Formula for High-Performance CLF-based Control
Current coordinates: Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin Air Force Base
Email: jess (dot) curtis (at) eglin (dot) af (dot) mil

Jonathan R. Lawton, PhD, 2000
Dissertation: A Behavior-based Approach for Spacecraft Formation Flying
Current coordinates: L3 Communications West, Salt Lake City
Email: jonathan (dot) lawton (at) L-3com (dot) com

Former Masters Students

Caleb Chamberlain, MS, 2011
Thesis:  System Identification, State Estimation, and Control of Unmanned Aerial Robots
Current Coordinates: CEO, CH Robotics
Email: voiceafx (at) gmail (dot) com

Andrew Curtis, MS, 2008
Thesis: Path Planning for Unmanned Air and Ground Vehicles in Urban Environments
Current Coordinates: MIT Lincoln Labs, Lexington, MA
Email: byudrew (at) gmail (dot) com

Joe Egbert, MS, 2008
Thesis: Low-Altitude Road Following Using Strap-Down Cameras on Miniature Aerial Vehicles
Current Coordinates: Scientific Systems
Email: jegbert1 (at) gmail (dot) com

Steve Osborne, MS, 2007
Thesis: Transition Between Hover and Level Flight for a Tailsitter UAV
Current coordinates:Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson
Email: srosborne (at) gmail (dot) com

Ryan Holt, MS, 2007
Thesis: Three Enabling Technologies for Vision-Based Forest-Fire Perimeter Surveillance Using Multiple Unmanned Aerial Systems
Current coordinates: MIT Lincoln Labs, Lexington, MA
Email: holt (dot) ryan (at) gmail (dot) com

David Johanson, MS, 2006
Thesis: Video Stabilization and Object Localization Using Feature Tracking with Small UAV Video
Current coordinates: Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson
Email: davejohansen (at) gmail (dot) com

Joshua Matthews, MS, 2006
Thesis: Adaptive Control of Micro Air Vehicles
Current coordinates: Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson
Email: josh_matthews (at) byu (dot) edu

Brandon Call, MS, 2006
Thesis: Obstacle Avoidance for Unmanned Air Vehicles Using Computer Vision
Current coordinates: MIT Lincoln Labs
Email: brandoncall (at) gmail (dot) com

Walt Johnson, MS, 2005
Thesis: The Kestrel Autopilot
Current coordinates: Procerus Technologies
Email: waltj (at) procerusuav (dot) com

Reed Christiansen, MS, 2004
Thesis: Design of an Autopilot for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Current coordinates: Procerus Technologies
Email: reedc (at) procerusuav (dot) com

Josh Hintze, MS, 2004
Thesis: Autonomous Landing of a Rotary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in a Non-Cooperative Environment Using Machine Vision
Current coordinates: Procerus Technologies
Email: joshh (at) procerusuav (dot) com

Derek Kingston, MS, 2003
Thesis: Implementation Issues of Real-Time Trajectory Generation on Small UAVs
Current coordinates: AFRL, WPAFB

Erik Anderson, MS, 2002
Thesis: Extremal Control and Unmanned Air Vehicle Trajectory Generation
Current coordinates: Google
Email: erikpanderson (at) google (dot) com

Jed Kelsey, MS, 2001
Thesis: The MAGICC Mobile Robot Toolbox (MMRT): A Simulink-based Control and Coordination Toolbox for Multiple Robotic Agents
Current coordinates: Scientific Systems Corporation Inc.
Email: jed (dot) m (dot) kelsey (at) jpl (dot) nasa (dot) gov

J. Will Curtis, MS, 2000
Dissertation: Nonlinear controller comparison on a benchmark system
Current coordinates: Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin Air Force Base
Email: jess (dot) curtis (at) eglin (dot) af (dot) mil

Brett Young, MS, 2000
Dissertation: Mobile robots: coordination and control
Current coordinates: Raytheon Systems Inc., Tucson, Arizona
Email: Brett_J_Young (at) raytheon (dot) com