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
  • Cognitive-aware human-autonomy teaming
  • Cognitive neuroengineering
  • Autonomous UAS and UAS swarms
  • AI, aerial robotics, and control for agricultural, environmental, neural engineering, 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


  • 01/18/2022 Fanyu will present our work on "Autonomous Greenhouse Control: A Bayesian Optimization and Model-based Reinforcement Learning Approach" at the International Conference on Digital Technologies for Sustainable Crop Production (DIGICROP).
  • 12/20/2021 Dr. Kong will join two new editorial boards starting 2022: Frontiers in Aerospace Engineering & Technology Conferences Editorial Board (TCEB).
  • 12/10/2021 Our lab has received a research grant from CITRIS on "Unscrewed Aerial Vehicle Swarms for Large-Scale and Real-Time Air Toxic Measurement near Wildland-Urban-Interface Fires". Our collaborators include Dr. Deborah Bennett, Dr. Thomas Young, and Dr. Anthony Wexler. We are very excited to work on this project!
  • 12/09/2021 Jailan Sabet has successfully completed her MS project "Classification of EEG Signals Utilizing Convolutional Neural Networks". She will join Reltio as a software engineering. Congrats Jailan. We wish her a bright future! 
  • 11/12/2021 Ryan Liang has successfully completed his MS thesis "Vision-Based Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Navigation in Virtual Complex Environment using Deep Reinforcement Learning". He will join Sandia National Laboratories. Congrats Ryan. We wish him a bright future! 
  • 10/19/2021 Our paper "Drones: Innovative Technology for Use in Precision Pest Management" has won the Journal of Economic Entomology Editor’s Choice Award.
  • 08/11/2021 Our lab alumnus, Gang Chen, will join South China University of Technology as an Assistant Professor. Congrats, Gang! Wish you a bright future!
  • 08/01/2021 Our team (led by Dr. Xin Liu, Dr. Mason Earles and Dr. Kong) participated in the 3rd International Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge and got 2nd among 45 teams in the part B Machine Learning section.
  • 07/27/2021 Our paper "Interpretable Fault Diagnosis for Cyber-physical Systems: A Learning Perspective" is now available online.
  • 07/23/2021 Andrew will join Advance.Farm. Congratulations, Andrew. We wish you a bright future!
  • 06/21/21 Our lab has received a research grant from the Sony Corporation on "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarms for Large-Scale, Real-Time, and Intelligent Disaster Responses". We are very excited to work with Sony on the project!
  • 06/03/21 Our paper "System Identification of Wind Effects on Multirotor Aircraft" is now available online.
  • 04/23/21 Our paper "Interpretable Fault Diagnosis for Cyber-Physical Systems: A Learning Perspective" has been accepted by Computer (SI: Formal Methods Applied to Cyber-Physical Systems).
  • 02/16/21 Evan's study on using unmanned vehicles for vaccine distribution has been featured by ABC10. Here is the story.

In the Press

Location

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