Systems, Control and Optimization Laboratory

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Dr. Swaroop Darbha

Dr Swaroop Darbha PictureProfessor, Mechanical Engineering

Gulf Oil/Thomas A. Dietz Professor

Affiliated Faculty, Ocean Engineering

 

Phone: 979-862-2238                  Email: dswaroop@tamu.edu

FAX: 979-845-3081                       Office: MEOB 526

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Educational Background

Teaching Experience

Graduate Courses Developed:

  • Nonlinear Control System Design (MEEN 655)
  • Convex Optimization Methods for Control System Design (MEEN 689)

Other Graduate Courses Taught:

  • Mechanics of Robotic Manipulators (MEEN 612)
  • Control System Design (MEEN 651)

Undergraduate Core Courses Taught:

  • Introduction to Engineering (ENGR 112)
  • Statics and Dynamics (MEEN 221)
  • Mechanical Systems II (MEEN 335)
  •  Engineering Analysis for Mechanical Engineers (MEEN 357)
  • Dynamics and Vibrations (MEEN 363)
  • Dynamic Systems and Control (MEEN 364)
  •  Mechanical Engineering Design I (MEEN 401/445)
  •  Mechanical Engineering Design II (MEEN 402/446)

Undergraduate Technical Electives Taught:

  • Introduction to Robotics (MEEN 408)
  • Mechanical Controls (MEEN 411)
  •  Advanced Dynamics and Controls (MEEN 431)
  • Automobile Engineering (MEEN 432)
  • Design of Machine Components and Systems (MEEN 441)
  • Sound and Vibration (MEEN 459)

Awards and Honors

  • Faculty co-advisor, SAE/GM Autodrive Challenge Team winning 2nd prize overall
    and 1st prize in May 2018. (See https://tees.tamu.edu/news/2018/04/25/texas-amautodrive-challenge-team-shares-experience-before-showcase/ and https://www.sae.org/news/pressroom/2018/05/sae-international-and-general-motors-announce-winners-of-year-one-ofthe-autodrive-challenge-competition).
  • Keynote Speaker, Benefits of V2V Communicated Information for Autonomous and Connected Vehicles, Workshop on ITS, IEEE COMSNETS, Bangalore, India, January 2018.
  • Fellow, IEEE, January 2018 (citation: for contributions to Intelligent Transportation Systems & Autonomous Vehicles).
  • Elected Member, Tau Beta Pi, March 2016.
  • Best Paper Award for the ICUAS 2014 Paper on “Routing of two UAVs with Communication Constraints,” coauthored with S. G. Manyam (doctoral student), Prof. S. Rathinam, Dr. David Casbeer (AFRL) and Phillip Chandler (AFRL).
  • Semi-plenary speaker at the 2012 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference presenting the paper: “Sub-Optimal Stationary Policies For A Class of Stochastic Optimization Problems Arising in Robotic Surveillance Applications,” co-authored by M. Park, K. Krishnamoorty, S. Darbha, P. P. Khargonekar, P. Chandler and M. Pachter.
  • Fellow, ASME 2010 (citation: for contributions to Intelligent Transportation Systems & Autonomous Vehicles).
  • Dwight Look College of Engineering Faculty Fellow, Texas A&M University, October 2009.
  • Distinguished Achievement Award (College Level) of the Association of Former Students of Texas A&M University, October 2009.
  • Tenneco Oil Exploration & Production Award for Meritorious Teaching of Engineering (College Level), Texas A&M University, October 2009.
  • Peggy L. and Charles L. Brittan Teaching Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, Department of Mechanical Engineering, October 2006.

Academic Appointments

Summer Appointments

Editorial Board Membership

  • Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, January 2004 – December 2009; January 2018 – present.
  • Associate Editor: Differential Equations and Nonlinear Mechanics, May 2005 – December 2010.
  • Associate Editor: ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, January 2009 – December 2013.
  • Associate Editor: Conference Editorial Board, ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, 2008 – 2010.

Selected Talks

  1. “Intelligent Cruise Control Systems and Traffic Flow Stability,” Volpe National Transportation Center, Cambridge, MA, June 1998.
  2. “Intelligent Cruise Control Systems and Traffic Flow Stability,” Ford Scientific Research Laboratory, Dearborn, MI, August 1998.
  3. “Intelligent Cruise Control Systems and Traffic Flow Stability,” Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Berkeley, March 1999.
  4. “Aggregation of Dynamical Systems,” Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas, Dallas, April 1999.
  5. “Issues in the design of cooperative classification and attack algorithms for a collection of UAVs,” Air Force Research Laboratory, July 2000.
  6. “Issues in the design of cooperative classification and attack algorithms for a collection of UAVs,” Honeywell Research and Technology Center, Minneapolis, November 2000.
  7. “Issues in the design of automatic vehicle following systems,” Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, March 2001.
  8. “Traffic flow modeling via aggregation,” NSF Workshop on Engineering Transportation Industry, Arlington, VA, August 2001.
  9. “Cooperative control of LOCAAS vehicles,” Lockheed Martin Aerospace Company, September 2001.
  10. “A non-continuum modeling of the flow of traffic via aggregation,” Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies, University of Southern California, April 2002.
  11. “String Stability and its application to aggregation, decentralized control and estimation,” Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, April 2002.
  12. “Cooperative Path Planning Algorithms,” Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Seminar Series, Department of Computer Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, November 2002.
  13. “An overview of cooperative control research at Texas A&M University,” Lockheed Martin Aerospace Company, January 2003.
  14. “Synthesis of fixed order controllers,” Department of Aerospace Engineering, Purdue University, October 2003.
  15. “Development of a diagnostic system for air brakes in trucks,” National Fluid Power Association, Indianapolis, October 2003.
  16. “Synthesis of fixed structure controllers,” United Technologies Research Center, January 2004.
  17. “Modeling the flow of traffic,” Symposium in honor of Professor K. R. Rajagopal, Society of Engineering Science (SES) meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska, November 2004.
  18. “Combinatorial Motion Planning of Reeds-Shepp Vehicles,” Center for Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles, University of California at Berkeley, November 2005.
  19. “Information Flow and its relation to the stability of motion of vehicles in a rigid formation,” Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, April 2006.
  20. “Stochastic Optimal Controller for COUNTER project,” Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson AFB, September 2006.
  21. “Development of a spatially discrete model for the flow of traffic,” Indo-US Workshop on Recent Advances in Transportation Engineering, January 2007.
  22. “Multiple Depot Vehicle Routing,” Indo-US Workshop on Recent Advances in Transportation Engineering, January 2007.
  23. “Combinatorial Motion Planning of Unmanned Vehicles,” Center for Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles, University of California at Berkeley, March 2007.
  24. “Fixed Order Controller synthesis via Linear Programming,” IMA-TAMU Summer School and Workshop on Applicable Algebraic Geometry, Texas A&M University, College Station, August 2007.
  25. “Combinatorial Motion Planning for a collection of Unmanned Vehicles,” ICECON Conference, National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, December 2007.
  26. “Routing of a collection of Unmanned Vehicles,” Air Vehicles Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Dayton, August 2008.
  27. “Alert Processing,” Center for Excellence in Control Science and Engineering, Air Vehicles Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Dayton on August 2008.
  28. “Linear Programming Approximations for Stochastic Dynamic Programming,” Center for Excellence in Control Science and Engineering, Air Vehicles Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Dayton, August 2009.
  29. “String Stability in Automated Vehicle Following Systems,” Maseeh Collogquium, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Portland State University, November 2009.
  30. “Performance Guarantee of a Suboptimal Policy for Multi-Robot Perimeter Surveillance,” Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zurich, May 2014.
  31. “String Stability of Automatic Vehicle Following Systems,” Department of Engineering Design, Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, July 2014.
  32. “Performance Guarantee of a Suboptimal Policy for Multi-Robot Perimeter Surveillance,” Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, October 2014.
  33. “Routing Algorithms for a heterogeneous collection of UAVs,” Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, National University of Singapore, October 2014.
  34. “Performance Guarantee of a Suboptimal Policy for Multi-Robot Perimeter Surveillance,” Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands, March 2016.
  35. “Diagnostics for Air Brakes in Trucks,” TNO, Eindhoven, Netherlands, March 2016.
  36. “Routing a collection of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles,” Planning Workshop, Texas A&M University at Qatar, April 2016.
  37. “Perimeter Surveillance Problem and Stochastic Control,” Robotics Laboratory, King Abdulla University of Science and Technology, December 2016.
  38. “Perimeter Surveillance Problem and Stochastic Control,” Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT-BHU, Varanasi, India, June 2017.
  39. “String Stability of Automatic Vehicle Following Systems,” Nonlinear Analysis & Dynamical Systems Seminar, UT Dallas, October 2017.
  40. “Benefits of V2V communication for Autonomous Vehicle Following,” Keynote Speaker, Workshop on ITS, COMNETS Conference, Bangalore, January 3, 2018.
  41. “String Stability of Automatic Vehicle Following Systems,” Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, March 27, 2018.
  42. “String Stability of Automatic Vehicle Following Systems,” University of Notre Dame, April 16, 2018.
  43. “String Stability of Automatic Vehicle Following Systems,” KTH, Stockholm, May 3, 2018.
  44. “Persistent Monitoring using UAVs.” Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 9, 2018.
  45. “Persistent Monitoring using UAVs,” AFRL Technical Interchange Meeting, Dayton, July 17, 2018.
  46. “Benefits of V2V communication for Autonomous Vehicle Following,” Graduate seminar at Department of Electrical Engineering, Virginia Tech, September 21, 2018.
  47. “Diagnostics for Air Brakes in Autonomous and Connected Trucks,” Nonlinear Analysis & Dynamical Systems Seminar, UT Dallas, March 2019.
  48. “Persistent Monitoring using UAVs for ISR Missions,” Department of Electrical Engineering, Purdue University, November 2019.
  49. “Benefits of Connectivity for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles,” TRB Workshop on The Advancement of Modeling Connected and Automated Vehicles: Past and Future, presented at the 12th January 2020 at Washington, DC.

 

Professional Memberships

  • American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Fellow.
  • Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Fellow.
  • IEEE Control Systems Society.
  • IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society.
  • IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

Professional Service

Editorial Service:

  • Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, January 2018 – present.
  • Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, January 2004 – December 2009.
  • Associate Editor, Differential Equations and Nonlinear Mechanics, January 2005 – December 2010.
  • Associate Editor, Conference Editorial Board, ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, 2008 – 2010.
  • Associate Editor, ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, January 2009 – December 2013.

Service as a Reviewer for Proposals:

  • California PATH Program – 02/96, 02/97, 02/99.
  • Panel reviewer for National Science Foundation – 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 2016, 2017.
  • Reviewer for Indiana21 State Fund.
  • US-Ukraine Cooperative Research Program.
  • Institute for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota.

External Referee Service:

  • Ph. D. Dissertations/Theses from Other Universities:
    • Department of Electrical Engineering, KTH, Stockholm, May 2018.
    • Department of Information and Systems Engineering, ETH, Zurich, July 2015.
    • Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Toronto, 2005.
    • Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, 2005.
    • Department of Control and Instrumentation Engineering, National Institute of Technology at Trichy, India, 2009.
    • Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology at Warangal, India, 2012.
  • Tenure and Promotion:
    • Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore.
    • Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
    • Department of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette.
    • Department of Electrical Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg.
    • Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
    • Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Doha, Qatar.
    • California PATH program, Institute for Transportation Studies, University of California at Berkeley, CA

Conference Service:

  • Program Committee Membership:
    • American Control Conference, 2000.
    • 3rd IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference, October 2000.
    • 4th IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference, October 2001.
    • 8th IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference, October 2005.
    • Advanced Vehicular Control Symposium (AVEC), Ann Arbor, MI, August 2000.
    • IEEE Conference on Control Applications, San Antonio, TX, September 2008.
  • Co-Organizer for the Tutorial Session: Planning and Control of Unmanned Vehicles, American Control Conference, 2013, 2015.

Referee Service:

  • IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
  • Transportation Research C.
  • IET Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
  • Vehicle Dynamics Journal.
  • ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control.
  • IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.
  • International Journal of Engineering Science.
  • Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Practice, and Real-World Applications.
  • IEE Control Theory and Applications.
  • Systems and Control Letters.
  • European Journal of Operations Research.
  • Automatica.
  • IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.
  • IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.
  • IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
  • International Journal of Control
  • Conferences: American Control Conference, ASME IMECE, ASME Dynamic Systems, and Control Conference, IEEE ITS Conference, AVEC, IEEE CCA, IEEE CDC.

Other Service:

  •  Co-chair, ASME System Theory Panel, 1998-2001.

University Service:

  • Departmental Service:
    • Member, Qualifying Examination Committee for Controls/Vibrations, Fall 1998 to Fall 2005, Fall 2007 to Fall 2009.
    • Member, Graduate Studies Committee, Spring 2012 – Fall 2013.
    • Member, Graduate Curriculum Review Committee, Spring 2012- Fall 2013.
    • Member, Seminar Committee, Fall 2001 to Fall 2005.
    • Member of the thesis committees of several doctoral students from MEEN and AEEN.
    • Member, Faculty Search Committee, Dynamic Systems and Control Position, 2005.
    • Member, Faculty Search Committee, Thermal Sciences Position, 2005.
    • Member, Faculty Search Committee, Dynamic Systems and Control Position, 2007, 2008.
    • Member, Faculty Area SubCommittee (FASC), Department of Mechanical Engineering, TAMUQ, Fall 2014-Spring 2015.
    • Member, Graduate Studies Research Committee, Department of Mechanical Engineering, TAMU, Fall 2016 – present.
    • Member, Mentoring and Onboarding Committee, Department of Mechanical Engineering, TAMU, Fall 2016-Summer 2017.
    • Member, Faculty Search Committee, Department of Mechanical Engineering, TAMU, Spring 2016 – present.
    • Member, Faculty Advisory Committee, Department of Mechanical Engineering, TAMU, Fall 2017- present.
  • Other Service:
    • Member, College-Level Honors and Awards Committee for Research, Teaching and Service, 2011-2012.
    • Faculty Senator, 2011 – 2014.
    • Faculty Adviser, AID-TAMU, 2001-2011.
    • Departmental Representative for College-Level Tenure and Promotion at TAMUQ, 2014.
    • Member, TAMUQ Dean Search Committee, 2014 – 2015