Dynamics and Control Group

News Items

Prof. Mason Peck has received one of the small number of grants awarded this year by NIAC for revolutionary aeronautics and space concepts that could dramatically impact how NASA develops and conducts its missions. The one-year grant will fund a study of Lorentz-Augmented Orbits, which spacecraft traveling through the earth's magnetic field experience when they carry an electrostatic charge. Not only do such orbits come in surprising and useful shapes, but spacecraft using this means of propulsion can also escape from earth's orbit by "stealing" some of the earth's rotational kinetic energy. The project is eligible for a two-year follow-on grant of up to $400K. Read more.

The Cornell University Robocup team placed second at the 2005 Robocup competition held in Osaka, Japan.

Prof. Mason Peck, has become a faculty member in Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering starting in July of 2004.

Prof. Raffaello D'Andrea chosen as plenary speaker at the 2004 International Workshop on Robot Motion and Control

Awards

Prof. Francisco Valero-Cuevas is awarded a Humbold Research Fellowship to support his sabbatical research. He plans first to take an intensive German language course at the Boethe-Institut in Munich, then will spend the remainder of time at the Max Planck Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences in Munich in 2005-06.

Prof. Hod Lipson wins the Silver Medal for Human-Competitive Automated Invention, GECCO 2004.

Todd E. Humphreys, a 2nd year Ph.D. student in aerospace engineering, has received the 2004 AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Graduate Award. This competitive international award is given annually to an exceptional graduate student whose chosen research shows promise to impact one or more of the areas of guidance, navigation, and control. It consists of a $5000 cash award plus travel expenses to attend the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control conference. Humphreys was formally recognized at the conference's awards luncheon on Aug. 17 in Providence, RI.