HT Person Annual Lecture

Developing Cooperative, Autonomous, and Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles -

In this lecture, Dr. Daniel J. Pack will present an overview of unmanned systems research and training activities at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He will describe a number of current research projects at the Academy Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research that are sponsored by government organizations and industry partners to develop heterogeneous, cooperative unmanned systems technologies. Cooperative control, sensing, and communication challenges for multiple unmanned aircraft are also described. Finally, he will show the results of a research project on a heterogeneous, mobile sensor network, consisting of unmanned aircraft, mobile ground robots, and a set of stationary ground sensors, cooperating to perform the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) mission. For these missions, onboard radio frequency (RF) signal detectors as well as infrared (IR) and optical cameras as sensors were used. The project results illustrate the different roles played by the heterogeneous mobile sensor platforms as they cooperatively search, detect, verify, and locate ground targets using different target signatures, while demonstrating the scalability and effectiveness of the cooperative unmanned systems technologies.

Daniel J. Pack, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Academy Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, received B.S. in electrical engineering, M.S.degree in engineering sciences, and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University, Harvard University, and Purdue University, respectively. He also spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Lincoln Laboratory. He has co-authored six textbooks on embedded systems (including 68HC12 Microcontroller: Theory and Applications and Embedded Systems: Design and Applications with the 68HC12 and HCS12) and published over 100 book chapters, technical journal/transactions, and conference papers on unmanned systems, cooperative control, robotics, pattern recognition, and engineering education.

In addition, Daniel is the recipient of a number of teaching and research awards including Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year Award, Frank J. Seiler Research Excellence Award, Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Professor Award, Academy Educator Award, and Magoon Award. He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu (electrical engineering honorary), Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honorary), IEEE (senior member), and the American Society of Engineering Education. He is a registered professional engineer in Colorado. His research interests include unmanned aerial vehicles, intelligent control, automatic target recognition, and robotics.

For additional details about the lecture or other college events please contact the College of Engineering and Applied Science at (307) 766-4253 or by e-mail to engevents@uwyo.edu.