Ella M. Atkins

Ella M. Atkins
Associate Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Address: University of Michigan, 3009 FXB Building, 1320 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Phone: (734) 615-7456, FAX: (734) 763-0578, E-mail: ematkins@umich.edu

Education:
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Computer Science and Engineering, 1999
M.S., University of Michigan, Computer Science and Engineering, 1995
S.M., (a reverse notation for M.S.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1990
S.B., (uniquely a B.S. degree), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1988

Experience (excluding the student experience):
Consultant, Institute for Defense Analysis, 2005-present
Assistant Professor (granted tenure Spring 2006), University of Maryland, College Park, Aerospace Engineering Dept., 1999-2006
Project Engineer, Structural Dynamics Research Corporation (SDRC), now ATA Engineering, San Diego, 1990-1993
Engineering Intern, Structural Dynamics Department, The Aerospace Corporation, Los Angeles, 1986-1987

Aerospace Engineering Course Instruction

University of Michigan:

Aero 495: Flight Software Systems, Fall 2006, Fall 2007
Aero 548: Astrodynamics, Winter 2007
ENGR 101: Introduction to Computers and Programming, Winter 2008

University of Maryland (1999-2006):

ENAE 202: Aerospace Computing (or, C++ and Matlab) (Spring 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006)
ENAE 261: Aerospace Analysis and Computation (Fall 2001)
ENAE 380: Flight Software Systems (Fall 2005)
ENAE 488E: Embedded Real-time Systems (Fall 2003, Spring 2006)
ENAE 692: Introduction to Space Robotics (Fall 1999, Fall 2001)
ENAE 788I: Intelligent Automation of Aerospace Systems (Fall 2000, Fall 2004)

Ongoing Research Projects

FlyingFish: An Unmanned Aerial System for Persistent Ocean Surveillance
Damage-Adaptive Flight Planning for Manned and Unmanned Air Vehicles
A Tabletop Satellite Platform for "Aerospace Computing and Control" Education
Autonomous Planning/Scheduling for Human-Robot Exploration Teams
Heterogeneous Air Vehicle Separation Management

Current Graduate Students

Cat McGhan, NSF Fellow, University of Michigan (BS/MS: University of Maryland)
Ryan Eubank, Research Assistant, University of Michigan (BS/MS: University of Maryland, Rising Star Fellow (NIA/NASA LARC))
Rebecca Besser, Research Assistant & Fellow, University of Michigan (BS: University of Maryland)
Derrick Yeo, Research Assistant, University of Michigan (BS: University of Michigan)
Hee Jun Choi, Research Assistant, University of Michigan (BS: Konkuk University, Korea)
Gina Moylan, Research Assistant, University of Maryland

Former Students/Staff

Wei Ren (Research Associate), Assistant Professor, Utah State University
Jamie Lennon, (PhD, 2006), Dissertation: An Architecture for the Autonomous Generation of Preference-Optimized Trajectories,, Naval Research Lab
Min Xue, (PhD, 2006), Dissertation: Real Time Terminal Area Trajectory Planning for Runway Independent Aircraft,, NASA Ames
Michael Naylor (MS with thesis), Accuray (Machine Vision)
Matthew Strube (MS with thesis), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Lauren Chung (MS with thesis), AI Solutions
Daniel Chavez Clemente (MS with thesis), PhD candidate, Stanford University
Jeffrey Smithanik (MS with thesis), MPR Associates
Igor Alonso Portillo (MS with thesis), CAF (Spain)
Michael Pang (MS with thesis), Oceaneering
Rhiannon Peasco (MS with thesis), Carr Astronautics
Brandon Fosdick (MS with thesis), Lockheed
Maxime Ransan (MS with thesis)
Yunshen Tang (MS with thesis)
Yannick Pennecot (MS with thesis)
Jason Smith (MS, scholarly paper), Lockheed
Aaron Hoskins (MS, scholarly paper)
Assaf Barnoy (MS, scholarly paper)
Vaibhav Jain (MS, scholarly paper)

Ph.D. Research

Title: Plan Generation and Real-time Execution with Application to Safe, Autonomous Flight, (PDF Version)
Institution: University of Michigan, EECS Department, CSE Division
Co-Advisors (two are better than one, I always say):

My dissertation research studied the integration of AI planning and real-time scheduling algorithms in the context of CIRCA (the Cooperative Intelligent Real-time Control Architecture). CIRCA, shown in the adjoining figure, combines a traditional state-space AI planner with a real-time scheduler and plan execution module to build and schedule plans that execute in guaranteed (hard) real-time. First, to handle imprecise knowledge and incomplete plans, we incorporated a "safety net" that is able to detect and react to states that were not explicitly considered by the state-space planner. Next, we developed a negotiation strategy that allows stochastic planning and real-time resource allocation agents to iteratively make tradeoffs that ultimately minimize the likelihood of catastropic system failure given a hard real-time environment and limited computational resources.

Publications

Journal

A. Hoskins and E. Atkins, "Satellite Formation Mission Optimization with a Multi-Impulse Design," Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, AIAA, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 425-433, Mar-Apr 2007.
W. Ren, R. W. Beard, and E. M. Atkins, "Consensus Problems in Multi-vehicle Cooperative Control: A Tutorial Overview," IEEE Control Systems Magazine, to appear.
T. Wasserman, J. Lennon, and E. Atkins, "Fault-Tolerant Vision-based Astronaut Following for Planetary Exploration," Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, AIAA, vol. 3, no. 12, pp. 603-618, Dec. 2006.
W. Ren and E. Atkins, "Distributed Multi-Vehicle Coordinated Control via Local Information Exchange," International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, to appear
E. M. Atkins, I. Alonso Portillo, and M. J. Strube, "Emergency Flight Planning applied to Total Loss of Thrust," Journal of Aircraft, AIAA, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 1205-1216, Jul-Aug 2006.
J. Smithanik, E. Atkins, and R. Sanner, "A Visual Positioning System for an Underwater Space Simulation Environment," Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, AIAA, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 858-869, Jul-Aug 2006.
M. Xue and E. Atkins, "Runway-Independent Aircraft Approach Design for the Baltimore-Washington Airport," Journal of Aircraft, AIAA, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 39-51, Jan-Feb 2006.
D. Chavez-Clemente and E. M. Atkins, "Optimization of Tetrahedral Satellite Formations," Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 699-710, July-August 2005.
J. A. Lennon and E. M. Atkins, "Multi-Objective Spacecraft Trajectory Optimization with Synthetic Agent Oversight," Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication (JACIC), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 4-24, Jan. 2005.
S. Roderick, B. Roberts, E. Atkins, P. Churchill, and D. Akin, "Design and Validation of an Autonomous Software Safety System for a Dexterous Space Robot," Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication (JACIC), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), vol. 1, no. 12, pp. 564-579, Dec. 2004.
S. Roderick, B. Roberts, E. Atkins, and D. Akin, "The Ranger Robotic Satellite Servicer and its Autonomous Software-based Safety System," IEEE Intelligent Systems, IEEE, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 13-20, Sept/Oct 2004.
E. M. Atkins and M. Xue, "Noise Sensitive Final Approach Trajectory Optimization for Runway-Independent Aircraft", Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), vol. 1, no. 7, pp. 269-287, July 2004.
E. M. Atkins, T. F. Abdelzaher, K. G. Shin, and E. H. Durfee, Planning and Resource Allocation for Hard Real-time, Fault-Tolerant Plan Execution, Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Best of Agents '99 Special Issue, Mar-Apr 2001.
T. F. Abdelzaher, E. M. Atkins, and K. G. Shin, QoS Negotiation in Real-Time Systems and Its Application to Automated Flight Control, IEEE Transactions on Computers, Best of RTAS '97 Special Issue, vol. 49, no. 11, pp. 1170-1183, November 2000.

Conference

J. Lennon and E. Atkins, "Preference-Based Trajectory Planning," Proc. Infotech@Aerospace Conference,, AIAA, Rohnert Park, CA, May 2007.
M. Ransan and E. Atkins, "Human-Robot Team Task Scheduling for Planetary Surface Missions," Proc. Infotech@Aerospace Conference,, AIAA, Rohnert Park, CA, May 2007.
C. McGhan and E. Atkins, "A Virtual Rover Interface for Collaborative Human-Robot Exploration Teams," Proc. Infotech@Aerospace Conference,, AIAA, Rohnert Park, CA, May 2007.
Y. Tang, E. Atkins, and R. Sanner, "Emergency Flight planning for a Generalized Transport Aircraft with Left Wing Damage," Proc. Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference,, AIAA, Hilton Head, SC, Aug. 2007.
M. Naylor, E. Atkins, and S. Roderick, "Visual Target Recognition and Tracking for Autonomous Manipulation Tasks," Proc. Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference,, AIAA, Hilton Head, SC, Aug. 2007.
G. Moylan and E. Atkins, "Research Trends in Autonomous Space-based Planning and Scheduling," Intl. Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, Oct. 2006.
C. McGhan, R. Besser, R. Sanner, and E. Atkins, "Semi-Autonomous Inspection with a Neutral Buoyancy Free-Flyer," Proc. Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference,, AIAA, Keystone, CO, Aug. 2006.
A. Hoskins and E. Atkins, "Satellite Formation Design with a Multi-Objective Optimization Technique," AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference,, AIAA, Keystone, CO, August 2006.
E. Atkins, G. Moylan, and A. Hoskins, "Space-Based Assembly with Symbolic and Continuous Planning Experts," Proc. IEEE Aerospace Conference, March 2006.
M. Xue and E. Atkins, "Terminal Area Trajectory Optimization using Simulated Annealing," Proc. AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 2006.
A. Hoskins and E. Atkins, "Formation Attitude Optimization with a Multi-Impulse Design," Proc. GSFC Flight Mechanics Symposium,, October 2005.
W. Ren and E. Atkins, "Coordination of Multiple Micro-Air Vehicles Using Consensus Schemes," Proc. AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference, September 2005.
J. Smith, E. Valente, R. Eubank, and E. Atkins, "A Low-Cost Research Autopilot for System Identification," Proc. AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference, September 2005.
M. Naylor, N. Scott, E. Atkins, and S. Roderick, "Toward Autonomous Sampling and Servicing with the Ranger Dexterous Manipulator," Proc. AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference, September 2005.
T. Wasserman, J. Lennon, and E. Atkins, "Robust Vision-Based Astronaut Following for Planetary Exploration," Proc. AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference, September 2005.
J. Lennon and E. Atkins, "Intelligent Weight Selection for Trajectory Optimization," Proc. AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference, September 2005.
E. Atkins and G. Moylan, "Blocks in Space: Intelligent Self-Assembly Using Optimal Control Trajectory Planning," Proc. AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference, September 2005.
A. Hoskins and E. Atkins, "Spacecraft Formation Optimization with a Multi-Impulse Design," Proc. AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, August 2005.
W. Ren and E. Atkins,"Nonlinear Trajectory Tracking for Fixed-Wing UAVs via Backstepping and Parameter Adaptation," Proc. AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, August 2005.
W. Ren and E. Atkins,"Second-Order Consensus Protocols in Multiple Vehicle Systems with Local Interactions," Proc. AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, August 2005.
W. Ren, R. Beard, and E. Atkins,"A Survey of Consensus Problems in Multi-Agent Coordination," in Proc. American Control Conference, May 2005.
M. Xue and E. Atkins, "Three-Dimensional Segmented Trajectory Optimization for Runway-Independent Aircraft," in Proc. AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, Nevada, January 2005.
J. Lennon and E. Atkins, "Optimal Path Planning with Behavior-Based Cost Definition," in Proc. 1st AIAA Intelligent Systems Conference, Chicago, Illinois, September 2004.
M. Strube, R. Sanner, and E. Atkins, "Dynamic Flight Guidance Recalibration after Actuator Failure," in Proc. 1st AIAA Intelligent Systems Conference, Chicago, Illinois, September 2004.
D. Chavez Clemente and E. Atkins, "Optimization of Tetrahedral Satellite Formations," in Proc. AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Providence, Rhode Island, August 2004.
E. M. Atkins, "Dynamic Waypoint Generation given Reduced Flight Performance," in Proceedings of the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Conference, Reno, Nevada, January 2004.
M. Xue and E. M. Atkins, "Noise Sensitive Final Approach Trajectory Optimization for Runway-Independent Aircraft," in Proc. of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Austin, TX, August 2003.
H. Li, E. Atkins, E. Durfee, and K. Shin, "Resource Allocation for a Limited Real-Time Agent," in Proc. of the Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) Conference, July 2003.
G. Gopalan, M. Xue, E. Atkins, and F. Schmitz, Longitudinal-Plane Simultaneous Non Interfering Approach Trajectory Design for Noise Minimization, in Proc. of the American Helicopter Society (AHS) 59th Annual Forum, May 2003.
E. M. Atkins and R. M. Sanner, QoS Tradeoffs for Guidance, Navigation, and Control, Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 2002.
E. M. Atkins and Y. Pennecot, Autonomous Satellite Formation Assembly and Reconfiguration with Gravity Fields, Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 2002.
E. M. Atkins, J. A. Lennon, and R. S. Peasco, Vision-based Following for Cooperative Astronaut-Robot Operations, Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 2002.
Y. Pennecot, E. M. Atkins, and R. M. Sanner, Intelligent Spacecraft Formation Management and Path Planning, Proceedings of the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Conference, Reno, Nevada, January 2002 (AIAA 2002-1072).
I. Alonso-Portillo and E. M. Atkins, Adaptive Trajectory Planning for Flight Management Systems, Proceedings of the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Conference, Reno, Nevada, January 2002 (AIAA 2002-1073).
J. A. Lennon and E. M. Atkins, Color-based Vision Tracking for an Astronaut EVA Assist Vehicle, Proceedings of the SAE International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES), Orlando, FL, July 2001.
E. M. Atkins, R. H. Miller, T. VanPelt, K. D. Shaw, W. B. Ribbens, P. D. Washabaugh, and D. S. Bernstein, Solus: An Autonomous Aircraft for Flight Control and Trajectory Planning Research, Proceedings of the American Control Conference (ACC), vol. 2, pp. 689-693, June 1998.
E. M. Atkins, E. H. Durfee, K. G. Shin, Detecting and Reacting to Unplanned-for World States, Proceedings of AAAI-97, July 1997, pp. 571-576.
C. B. McVey, E. M. Atkins, E. H. Durfee, and K. G. Shin, Development of Iterative Real-time Scheduler to Planner Feedback, Proceedings of IJCAI-97, pp. 1267-1272, August 1997.
E. M. Atkins, E. H. Durfee, K. G. Shin, Plan Development Using Local Probabilistic Models, Proceedings of the Twelfth Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, pp. 49-56, August 1996.

Symposium/Workshop

J. Lennon and E. Atkins, "Making Decisions about Motion," Working Notes of the AAAI Fall Symposium on Cognitive Science and Robotics, October 2004.
E. M. Atkins, "Flight Plan Management with George Jetson as Pilot," Working Notes of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Interaction between Humans and Autonomous Systems over Extended Operation, March 2004.
A. Skotowski and E. Atkins, Scheduling Actions with State-Dependent Resource Requirements, Working Notes of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Foundations and Applications of Spatio-Temporal Reasoning (FASTR), March 2003.
J. Lennon and E. Atkins, A Rule-based Strategy for Astronaut Following Operations, Working Notes of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Human Interaction with Autonomous Systems in Complex Environments, March 2003.
E. M. Atkins, Autonomous Hard Real-time Response in Safety-Critical Systems, Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics & Automation in Space: I-SAIRAS 2001, Canadian Space Agency, St.-Hubert, Quebec, Canada, June 2001.
E. M. Atkins, "The Hybrid Planning-Scheduling System in CIRCA-II," AAAI-2000 Workshop on Constraints and AI Planning, AAAI Technical Report WS-00-02, pp. 7-10, July 2000.
E. M. Atkins, "Knowledge Representation for Real-time Plan Development," AAAI-2000 Workshop on Representational Issues for Real-World Planning Systems, AAAI Technical Report WS-00-07, pp. 1-5, July 2000.
E. M. Atkins, E. H. Durfee, and K. G. Shin, ,"Autonomous Flight with CIRCA-II," Autonomous Agents-99 Workshop on Autonomy Control Software, May 1999.
E. M. Atkins, E. H. Durfee, K. G. Shin, Buying Time for Resource-Bounded Planning, AAAI-97 Workshop: Building Resource-Bounded Reasoning Systems Technical Report, pp. 7-11, July 1997.

Invited Presentations

"Robust Robotic Explorers with Symbolic and Continuous Reasoning Capabilities," NASA GSFC Information Sciences and Technology (IS&T) Colloquium, December 2004.
"Strategic Planning and Contingency Response for Aerospace Applications," (Panelist), Intelligent Systems Workshop, Infotech@Aerospace, September 2005.
"Robust Mission and Trajectory Planning for Air and Space Vehicles," Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, October 2005.
"Motion Planning and Cooperative Execution for Air and Space Sensor Teams," IDGA Military Sensors Conference, October 2005.
"Effects of Autonomy on Risk in Air and Space Systems," 9th Annual German-American Frontiers of Engineering, May 2006.

Last but not least, I include my diverse thesis pair:

E. M. Atkins, Plan Generation and Hard Real-time Execution with Application to Safe, Autonomous Flight, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan, 1999.
E. M. Atkins, Design and Implementation of a Multiprocessor System for Position and Attitude Control of an Underwater Robotic Vehicle, S.M. Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1990.

Biographical and Personal Information

Ella Atkins began her higher-education life as a nerd at MIT (1984-1990), where she built a a multi-processor control system for a free-flying neutral buoyancy simulation robotic vehicle. During her brief foray into industry, she worked as a structural dynamics test and analysis engineer at the Structural Dynamics Research Corporation (SDRC) in San Diego, California (1990 - 1993). Her job required her to hit curious structures with large hammers and analyze their modes (not moods) accordingly. Sometimes the hammers were small, as for a Callaway Big Bertha golf club head. Sometimes the hammers were massive, as for an OSC Taurus launch vehicle and an MD-92, a DC-9 descendant. During this frolic in San Diego, she became a private pilot (good weather, eh?) and acquired a wonderful spousal unit named Deano who appears to prefer submerged and airborne travel to the usual surface routes. On a whim and a significant loss of income, both she and Deano returned to grad school, studying computer science (AI) and astronomy, respectively, at the University of Michigan (1993-1999). Both have finally graduated, and Ella has at long last tamed that elusive beast known as "tenure". In her free time (as if there is any), she enjoys flying, scuba diving, classical piano, auto repair/maintenance, and playing with Lucas (now 8) and his twin brothers (now 4), who together are plotting to take over the world...

Last Updated: Ella M. Atkins (ematkins@umich.edu), 4/2007