Administrators

Dr. Eric N. Johnson

Professor of Aerospace Engineering

Dr. Eric Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Penn State, and the Director of PURL.

He is an aerospace engineer and an instrument-rated pilot. His research interests include digital avionics system design and integration, and and fault-tolerant estimation and control theory.

Dr. Thanakorn Khamvilai

Assistant Research Professor of Aerospace Engineering

Dr. Thanakorn Khamvilai (“TK”) is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and the Co-Director of PURL.

He obtained a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA in 2021 and a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Kasetsart University, Thailand. He was also a visiting scholar at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2020.

His research interests include avionics systems, real-time optimization, and guidance-navigation-and-control of autonomous systems.

Dr. Simon Miller

Assistant Research Professor (ARL)

Dr. Simon Miller is an Assistant Research Professor at the Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory (ARL). He works closely with Dr. Johnson and the graduate students of PURL as a research coordinator.

Graduate Students

Rachel Axten

Graduate Research Assistant

Rachel Axten started as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Fall 2018 to pursue her Ph.D. after earning her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Penn State.

In July 2021, Rachel was one of 36 women aerospace engineers around the world honored with the Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship.

Venkatakrishnan Iyer

Graduate Research Assistant

Venkat Iyer is a Ph.D. candidate in PURL. He holds a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Mumbai University, India. He also holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University where his research focused on developing control laws for yaw control of a ducted tail compound helicopter. Venkat worked as a rotorcraft system engineer at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), India, where he oversaw design and certification of avionics systems.

He is currently engaged in advancing vision-based navigation techniques for unmanned aerial systems. His research interests also include state estimation and system identification.

He is an active member in the Autonomous Robotics Competition Club (ARCC) at Penn State and has won numerous national and international UAS competitions. He is affiliated to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Vertical Flight Society.

Vítor Tumelero Valente

Graduate Research Assistant

Vitor T. Valente has been a Ph.D. student in PURL since Fall 2019. He holds a bachelor’s in Control and Automation Engineering from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering within the same University wherein his research focused on developing a controller for a hydraulic driven parallel manipulator focusing on attenuating sea waves. Vitor worked in the IFRS/Brazil as a professor from 2016 until he left on leave for his Ph.D. studies at Penn State.

He is currently investigating a new flight control system design for multirotor vehicles focusing on reducing the acoustic noise generated while in flight as part of his Ph.D. dissertation.

His research interests also include reconfigurable UAVs, state estimation and control system design for robotics and autonomous vehicles. He is affiliated to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the Vertical Flight Society (VFS).

Aniruddha Perumalla

Graduate Research Assistant

Ani Perumalla joined PURL at Penn State in Fall 2019 after earning his bachelor’s of science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Maryland, College Park. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering.

His personal portfolio is located at ani-per.gitlab.io.

His interests include computer vision techniques and collision avoidance for unmanned systems.

Christopher Milcsik

M.S. Student

Chris Milcsik is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at Penn State.

Visiting Students

Chitoshi Tamaoki

Chitoshi Tamaoki is a visiting graduate student in aerospace engineering who joined PURL in June 2023. Chitoshi originates from Japan, studied mechanical engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology for his Bachelor’s, and is now pursuing a Master’s at the University of Stuttgart. While at PURL, he is interested in exploring applications of adaptive avionics systems with a new framework developed in the Institute of Aircraft Systems (ILS) at the University of Stuttgart.

Associates

Henrik Christophersen

Research Engineer

Henrik Christophersen was previously in charge of managing the day-to-day operation of PURL’s facilities at the SCE/UNV airport. Prior to joining PURL, Henrik held positions with the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech Institute of Technology, and Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company.

His research interests include avionics hardware design and integration into unmanned aerial vehicles.

Alumni

Dr. Jintasit Pravitra

Ph.D. Student (Aug. '20 - Dec. '21)

Dr. Jintasit (“Ep”) Pravitra began his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology under Dr. Johnson’s supervision in August 2016, and moved along with him to PURL at Penn State beginning in August 2020. Ep graduated in December 2021. The topic of his thesis was “Shipboard UAS Operations with Optimized Landing Trajectories.”

His research interests include guidance, navigation and control of UAS, system design and integration for small UAS, and autopilot and ground station software development.

Masahiro Sato

M.S. Student (Aug. '19 - Aug. '21)

Masahiro earned his Master’s degree in mechanical control engineering from a graduate school in Japan, and then joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese manufacturing company. He joined PURL at Penn State in August 2019 and graduated with a second Master’s degree in August 2021. The topic of his second master’s thesis was “Autonomous approach to a moving ship’s mast via motion prediction.”

Ahmet Taha Koru

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Aug. '19 - Oct. '20)

Dr. Ahmet Taha Koru is an electrical and electronics engineer. His research interests include control theory, time-delay systems, multi-agent systems and optimization. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Penn State from August 2019 to October 2020.

Wen-Yu (Leo) Chien

M.S. Student (Aug. '18 - Aug. '20)

Wen-Yu Chien received his undergraduate degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering from the at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. He joined PURL at Penn State in August 2018 and graduated in August 2020 with a Master’s of Science degree.

Jacob Crouse

M.S. Student (Aug. '18 - Aug. '20)

Jake Crouse joined PURL at Penn State in August 2018 after receiving his B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado. He graduated with a Master’s of Science degree in August 2020.

Ankit Agarwal

M.S. Student (Aug. '18 - Jun. '20)

Ankit Agarwal earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering at Oregon State University. He joined PURL at Penn State in June 2018 and graduated in June 2020 with a Master’s of Science degree.

Oliver Dunbabin

M.S. Student (Jan. '18 - May '20)

Oliver Dunbabin joined PURL at Penn State in January 2018 and graduated in May 2020 with a Master’s of Science degree.

Jeffrey Lewis

Ph.D. Student (Jan. '16 - July. '23)

Jeff Lewis received his B.S. in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in fall 2015. He graduated from Georgia Tech in August 2018 under Dr. Johnson’s supervision with an M.S. in aerospace engineering that discussed covariance approximation for feature point vision-based navigation. Jeff followed Dr. Johnson in his move to Penn State and received his Ph.D. in 2023..

Jeff’s current research is in adaptive fault tolerant flight control. His other research interests include flight mechanics, guidance, navigation, and control.