Ph.D. student Vivek Sharma and ACRL alumnus Hamidreza Jafarnejadsani were recognized at the 2026 MechSE Spring Banquet for their outstanding achievements. Vivek Sharma, a current Ph.D. student in the ACRL  received the James O. Smith Memorial Award in recognition of his exceptional contributions as an Outstanding Teaching Assistant for ME 460: Industrial Control Systems. Dr. Hamidreza Jafarnejadsani, […]

We are proud to congratulate Prof. Naira Hovakimyan on receiving the Dean’s Award for Early Innovation. This award recognizes exceptional faculty who are advancing research at the early stages of the innovation lifecycle, transforming ideas into impactful technologies that benefit society. Selected from faculty who have submitted invention disclosures to the Office of Technology Management, […]

We congratulate the following PhD students on successfully defending their theses: Kang, Hyungsoo Thesis Title: Coordinated Path-Following Strategies for Multiple Vehicles over Directed Graph Networks Abstract: This dissertation develops coordinated path-following strategies for fleets of unmanned vehicles operating over general time-varying directed communication graphs. It addresses limitations of prior work that focused mainly on bidirectional […]

We are pleased to share that Autonomy Fest 2025, held on May 29-30 as part of a NASA University Leadership Initiative on robust and resilient autonomy, was featured in the annual Intelligent Systems review published by Aerospace America, the flagship magazine of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The article highlights efforts supported […]

We are honored to announce that Prof. Naira Hovakimyan presented in the Autonomy Talks seminar series, hosted by Prof. Gioele Zardini’s group, on October 14, 2025. Autonomy Talks is a longstanding, open-access forum launched in 2020 to foster cross-group dialogue and idea exchange among researchers working on autonomy innovations. To date, it has featured over […]

We are proud to share that Prof. Naira Hovakimyan has been elected as a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) — one of the most prestigious honors in the field of control theory and systems engineering. The official citation reads: For contributions to robust adaptive control, safe learning in autonomous systems, and […]

In late May, the AVIATE Center hosted a two-day Autonomy Fest as part of our ongoing NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) project on robust and resilient autonomy. The event brought together partner institutions, students, and industry collaborators to demonstrate integrated autonomy technologies and real-world flight tests — including the tech transfer of the L1 adaptive […]

On May 28–29, members of the ACRL lab, alongside collaborators from multiple labs and institutions, participated in a major demonstration event for NASA’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI). The two-day event featured technical presentations, interactive poster sessions, and live field tests showcasing the progress of ongoing ULI-supported research, including work led by the AVIATE Center at […]

Congratulations to Prof. Naira Hovakimyan on receiving the 2025 College Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring! A well-deserved recognition of her exceptional guidance and dedication to her students. More details can be found here: https://grainger.illinois.edu/research/faculty-awards#year=2025

Congratulations to Chuyuan! He defended his Ph.D. final exam successfully!