Event

Robotics Seminar: Ariadne, a common-sense thread for enabling provable safety in air mobility system

Friday, August 12, 2022
2:00 p.m.
2121 JMP

Ariadne, a common-sense thread for enabling provable safety in air mobility systems with unreliable components 

Eric Feron
Professor
Electrical, Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Saudi Arabia

Streaming Link

https://vid.umd.edu/detsmediasite/Play/155f9af12a17421c95eb670d7218a7fb1d

Abstract 

Ariadne is the Greek mythological character who provided her lover Theseus with a spool of thread to exit the Labyrinth, a maze he had to enter to kill the Minotaur, a half-human, half-bull monster. By doing so, she saved her lover from a certain death, and she surpassed Deadalus the genius architect of the Labyrinth. Today, Ariadne's thread saves lives in aviation and other safety-critical environments by requiring that one or more "Plan B" be ready to kick in for each failure known to have happened in the past, or likely to be happening in the future. Always required, often overlooked, Ariadne can often be embodied and implemented easily. It provides useful guidance towards designing certifiable autonomy.  

Biography

Eric Feron is Professor of Electrical, Computer, and Mechanical Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. Feron has been doing research and teaching at Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile, France, the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, the Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace - Supaéro, France, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and the Office National d’Études et Recherches Aérospatiales, France. 

Eric Feron’s interests are using fundamental concepts of control systems, optimization theory and computer science to address problems in aerospace and transportation engineering, including air transportation, robotics, software and system certification, and human-machine interaction. He has published three books and several research papers. He has started three companies. Feron is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is a private pilot and offshore sailor. 

Host 

Yancy Diaz-Mercado

Contact: appicard@umd.edu