Our lab is interested in engineering and understanding collaborative autonomy and assured autonomy. We study many topics on the borders of control theory, artificial intelligence, formal methods, and cognitive science. Currently our research focuses on:

  • Trustworthy AI/CPS, particularly safety and explanability
  • Adaptive human-autonomy teaming
  • Cognitive neuroengineering
  • Autonomous UAS and UAS swarms
  • AI and aerial robotics for agricultural, environmental, public health, and defense applications

Our lab accepts students from MAE, CS, and BME. If you are interested in joining our lab, please read this first before contacting us.

Recent Lab News

  • 05/26/2023 Dr. Yiming Qin has joined our lab as a postdoc. He will work on an AFOSR project. Welcome Yimin!
  • 05/16/2023 Greg has successfully held his PhD Exit Seminar "A Cognitively Informed and Network Based Investigation of Human Neural Activities, Behaviors, and Performance in Human-autonomy Teaming Tasks". Congrats Greg!
  • 04/08/2023 Our paper "Causal Explanation for Reinforcement Learning: Quantifying State and Temporal Importance" has been accepted by Applied Intelligence.  
  • 04/06/2023 Our paper "Neural Ensemble Dynamics in Truck and Hindlimb Sensorimotor Cortex Encode for The Control of Postural Stability" is now available online. 
  • 04/04/2023 Two undergraduate students who have worked in our lab over the past two years will go to graduate schools. Faress will join the Aeronautics & Astronautics program of Stanford and Shuchen will join the Robotics program of UPenn. Congrats, Shuchen and Faress!
  • 03/31/2023 Two projects involving our lab, "Explainable End to End Diet Recommendation System" and "Open-Source Infrastructure to Accelerate Scaling of Agricultural AI" , have been selected by AIFS for funding. 
  • 03/30/2023 Our paper "UAV-based Wildland Fire Air Toxics Data Collection and Analysis" is now available online.
  • 03/09/2023 Peng has successfully held his exit seminar "Data-Driven Modeling and High-Performance Control of Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Challenging Environments". He will join Prof. Stavros Vougioukas's group as a postdoc. Congrats Peng!
  • 03/01/2023 Our collaboration with Dr. Christine Johnson and Dr. Cristina Davis on using new sensing and robotics technologies to study wildlife reservoir in remote settings is featured by PBS NewsHour.
  • 02/21/2023 Our paper "Causal Fault Explanation for Environmental Control and Life Support System Anomaly Response" is now available online.
  • 01/20/2023 Our paper "Explainable AI Design Goals and Evaluation Metrics for Space Exploration: A Survey of Human Spaceflight Domain Experts" is now available online. 
  • 01/17/2023 Our ongoing collaboration with CalFire on using UAVs to study wildland and prescribed fires is featured by their news release.
  • 12/13/2022 Our lab has received a research grant from CITRIS on "Trust Aware Human-Machine Teaming Using Real-Time Neurophysiological Data" (with Dr. Kosa Goucher-Lambert at UC Berkeley as the PI). 
  • 11/25/2022 Our paper "Energy-optimal UAV Motion Planning and Control based on Integrated System Physical Dynamics" has been accepted by the Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. 
  • 11/22/2022 Our lab has received a research grant from AFOSR on "Metrics and Models for Real Time Inference and Prediction of Trust in Human-autonomy Teaming". Our collaborators include Dr. Allie Anderson and Dr. Torin Clark at CU Boulder. ​
  • 10/24/2022 Dr. Kong will give a talk on "Robotics & AI for Pandemic Intelligence" at the Pandemic Engineering for Accessibility and Community Engagement Workshop to be held at UC Davis on Oct. 17-18. 
  • 10/02/2022 Two of our posters "Causal Fault Explanation for Environmental Control and Life Support System Anomaly Response" and "Operationalizing Human Cognitive State Assessment" have been accepted by 2022 SmartHab Workshop. 
  • 09/01/2022 Dr. Ashkan Zehfroosh has joined our lab as a postdoc. He will work on an AIFS project and be co-supervised by Dr. Stavros Vougioukas. Welcome Ashkan!
  • 08/25/2022 Greg has successfully passed his PhD qualifying exam. Congrats, Greg! 
  • 08/10/2022 Our paper "Data-driven vermiculite distribution modelling for UAV-based precision pest management" is now available online.
  • 08/01/2022 Our lab will join the "Transdisciplinary Innovation in Predictive Science for Emerging Infectious Disease and Spillover" project led by Dr. Christine Johnson. Our lab will focus on developing robotics and sensor technologies for rapid, accurate, safe, and scalable pathogen detection tailored to a range of animals in diverse environments​.
  • 06/03/2022 Evan Foley has successfully completed his MS project "Optimal Control of Multiple UAVs for Wildfire Fighting". He will join Lockheed Martin. Congrats Evan. We wish him a bright future! 

In the Press

Location

Contact Us
academic surge, room 2328
one shields ave.
davis, CA 95616
zdkong (at) ucdavis (dot) edu