Seminar - James Forbes

Speaker

Dr. James Forbes, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan, United States

Topic

Estimation and Control on the Special Orthogonal Group of Rigid-Body Rotations

Abstract

Autonomous ground, air, space, and marine vehicles are critically reliant on an accurate attitude estimate and a reliable control system for operation. For instance, in order to slew and point a science payload or antenna on-board a spacecraft, noisy sensor data must be fused together into an attitude estimate that is in turn used within an attitude control strategy. This talk will focus on recent developments in attitude estimation and control. First, deterministic SO(3)-based attitude estimation will be discussed. An estimator with a structure similar to Poisson’s Equation and superior convergence properties compared to similar SO(3)-based estimators found in the literature will be presented. Estimating the rotation matrix (an element of SO(3)) directly is the motivation by the deficiencies of all attitude parametrizations (e.g., non-uniqueness and kinematic singularities). Second, SO(3)-based attitude control will be considered. Existing SO(3)-based controller have, effectively, a proportional-derivative (PD) structure; how to incorporate an angular velocity filter will be presented. This talk will close with a brief discussion of Prof. Forbes' other research interests, and future research.

Speaker's biography

James Richard Forbes grew up in Southern Ontario, Canada. James received his B.A.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (Honours, Co-op) from the University of Waterloo in 2006. While attending the University of Waterloo James participated in the co-op program; James had the opportunity to work in the manufacturing, automotive, rail, and industrial automation (robotics) industries. James was awarded his M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Science and Engineering from the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) in 2008 and 2011, respectively. He was awarded the G. N. Patterson Award for the most outstanding Ph.D. thesis in 2011. With Anton de Ruiter and Christopher Damaren, James coauthored the text “Spacecraft Dynamics and Control — An Introduction” published by Wiley in 2013 (ISBN-13: 978-1118342367). From May 2011 to August 2013 James was an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. While at McGill University he was also an associate member of the Centre for Intelligent Machines. James is currently an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. The focus of his research is the dynamics and control of aerospace systems including large flexible space structures, spacecraft, unconventional Mars rovers, and high-altitude balloons.

Invited by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering