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 explainability
  • Adaptive human-autonomy teaming
  • Cognitive neuro-engineering
  • 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 want to join our lab, please read this before contacting us.

Recent Lab News

  • 11/27/2023 Thomas completed his MS thesis on "Demonstration of a Digital Twin of a Laser Ablated Aluminum Alloy 6061 Disk for Fault Detection and Process Control". Congrats, Thomas!
  • 11/21/2023 Dr. Kong gave a talk on "Drones and Fire Hazards: Where There's Smoke, There's Fire" at MATLAB and Simulink Seminar Series "Fire and Ice, Earth and Oceans."
  • 11/17/2023 Ashwitha completed her MS project on "A Spiking Neural Network for Multi-channel EEG Recordings during Sustained-driving Attention Task." Congrats, Ashwitha!
  • 11/01/2023 Dr. Kong will be a topic editor for "Insights in Intelligent Aerospace Systems" at Frontiers in Aerospace Engineering.
  • 11/01/2023 Dr. Kong will lead a team of researchers from multiple UC campuses to participate in the X-prize wildfire competition.
  • 10/04/2023 Ashkan will join the California Department of Consumer Affairs on Oct. 6. Congratulations, Ashkan!
  • 09/21/2023 Three new students, Baihan Chen, Brinda Sevak, and Youssef Boutros, will join our lab this fall. Welcome!
  • 08/31/2023 Our work on developing UAVs for early wildfire detection and monitoring is featured by UC Davis News, CBS Sacramento, and KCRA.
  • 08/09/2023 Our lab has received a new research grant from NSF on "NCS-FO: Understanding the computations the brain performs during choice." Our collaborators include Dr. Karen Moxon (PI), Dr. Xin Liu, and Dr. Ignacio Saez. 
  • 07/29/2023 Our paper "Energy-optimal Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Motion Planning and Control Based on Integrated System Physical Dynamics" has been accepted by MECC 2023.
  • 07/12/2023 Our paper "Efficient Re-synthesis of Control Barrier Function via Safe Exploration" has been accepted by CDC 2023.
  • 07/07/2023 Global News features our work on using IoT sensors and UAVs for firefighting.
  • 07/07/2023 Our paper "Quantifying Causal Path-specific Importance in Structural Causal Model" is now available​ online. ​
  • 06/30/2023 Our paper "Causal Explanation for Reinforcement Learning: Quantifying State and Temporal Importance" is now available online.  
  • 06/15/2023 Our lab hosted a delegation of representatives of French Greentech, AgTech, and DeepTech companies.
  • 06/15/2023 Our work on using IoT sensors and UAVs for early wildfire prediction and detection is featured by the Washington Post.
  • 05/26/2023 Dr. Yimin Qin joined our lab as a postdoc. He will work on an AFOSR project. Welcome Yimin!
  • 05/26/2022 Ziyan has completed his MS project "A Convolutional Neural Network for Multi-channel EEG Recordings During a Sustained Attention Driving Task." He will join MocroPort. Congrats Ziyan. 
  • 05/16/2023 Greg has successfully held his Ph.D. Exit Seminar, "A Cognitively Informed and Network-Based Investigation of Human Neural Activities, Behaviors, and Performance in Human-autonomy Teaming Tasks." Congrats Greg!
  • 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 attend graduate schools. Faress will join Stanford's Aeronautics & Astronautics program, and Shuchen will join the Robotics program at 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 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 reservoirs 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 in their news release.​

In the Press

Location

Contact Us
2900 spafford St, suite 2
davis, CA 95618
zdkong (at) ucdavis (dot) edu