Lars Blackmore's Research

Books

"Robust Execution for Stochastic Hybrid Systems." L. Blackmore. VDM Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-3-639-09800-6.

Journal Publications and Book Chapters

"Space Launch in 50 Years: Abundance at Last?" Gwynne Shotwell and Lars Blackmore. National Academy of Engineering 'The Bridge: 50th Anniversary Issue', Volume 50, Number 5, pages 144-146 (2021).

"Autonomous Precision Landing of Space Rockets." Lars Blackmore. National Academy of Engineering 'The Bridge on Frontiers of Engineering', Volume 4, Number 46, pages 15-20 (2016).

"People in Control: Lars Blackmore." IEEE Control Systems Magazine, Volume 36, Number 6, pages 24-26 (2016).

"Feasibility Studies on Guidance and Global Path Planning for Wind-Assisted Montgolfiere in Titan." Nanaz Fathpour, Lars Blackmore, Yoshiaki Kuwata, Chris Assad, Michael Wolf, Claire Newman, Alberto Elfes and Kim Reh. IEEE Systems Journal, Vol 8, Issue 4, pages 1112-1125 (2014).

"Probabilistic Planning for Continuous Dynamic Systems under Bounded Risk." Masahiro Ono, Brian C. Williams and Lars Blackmore. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research,Volume 46, pages 511-577 (2013).

" Lossless Convexification of Non-Convex Control Bound and Pointing Constraints of the Soft Landing Optimal Control Problem." B. Acikmese, J. M. Carson III, and L. Blackmore. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Volume 21, Issue 6 (2013).

"Lossless Convexification of Control Constraints for a Class of Nonlinear Optimal Control Problems." L. Blackmore, B. Acikmese and J. M. Carson III. Systems and Control Letters 61 (2012), pp. 863-870.

"Swarm-Keeping Strategies for Spacecraft under J2 and Atmospheric Drag Perturbations." D. Morgan, S-J Chung, L. Blackmore, B. Acikmese, D. Bayard and F. Y. Hadaegh. AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, Volume 35, Issue 5 (2012).

"Chance-Constrained Optimal Path Planning with Obstacles." L. Blackmore, M. Ono and B. C. Williams. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 27, Issue 6, 2011.

"Lossless Convexification of a Class of Optimal Control Problems with Non-Convex Control Constraints." B. Acikmese and L. Blackmore. Automatica Vol. 47, No. 2, Feb 2011, pages 341-347.

"A Probabilistic Particle Control Approximation of Chance Constrained Stochastic Predictive Control." L. Blackmore, M. Ono, A. Bektassov and B. C. Williams. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 26, No. 3, June 2010.

"Minimum Landing Error Powered Descent Guidance for Mars Landing using Convex Optimization." L. Blackmore, B. Acikmese and D. P. Scharf. AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, Vol. 33 No. 4, July-August 2010.

"Active Estimation for Jump Markov Linear Systems." L. Blackmore, S. Rajamanoharan and B. C. Williams. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Nov 2008, Volume 53, Issue 10, pages 2223-2236.

" A Combined Stochastic and Greedy Hybrid Estimation Capability for Concurrent Hybrid Models with Autonomous Mode Transitions." L. Blackmore, S. Funiak and B. C. Williams. Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems 56 (2008) 105-129. A persistent link to this article is here.

"Robust, Optimal Predictive Control of Jump Markov Linear Systems using Particles." L. Blackmore, Askar Bektassov, Masahiro Ono and Brian C. Williams. In Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control, 2007 (Editors A. Bemporad, A. Bicchi and G. Buttazzo).

Conference Publications

"AUV Bathymetric Mapping Depth Planning for Bottom Following Splice Linear Programming Algorithm" L. Bush, L. Blackmore and B. C. Williams. In the Proceedings of the MTS/IEEE OCEANS2016 Conference.

"Lossless Convexification of Control Constraints for a Class of Nonlinear Optimal Control Problems." L. Blackmore, B. Acikmese and J. M. Carson III. In the Proceedings of the 2012 American Control Conference.

"Swarm Keeping Strategies for Spacecraft under J2 and Atmospheric Drag Perturbations." D. Morgan, S.-J. Chung, L. Blackmore, B. Acikmese, D. Bayard, and F. Y. Hadaegh. In the Proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Portland, OR, August 2011.

"Capabilities of Convex Powered-Descent Guidance Algorithms for Pinpoint and Precision Landing" J M Carson, B Acikmese, L Blackmore and A Wolf. In the Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, 2011.

"GN&C Trades for Touch-and-Go Sampling at Small Bodies." L. Alberto Cangahuala, S. Broschart, B. Acikmese, M. Mandic, L. Blackmore, E. Riedel, D. Bayard and M. Wallace. In the Proceedings of the 2011 American Astronautical Society Guidance,Navigation and Control Conference.

"Instrument Pointing Capabilities: Past, Present and Future." L. Blackmore, E. Murray, D. P. Scharf, M. Aung, D. Bayard, P. Brugarolas, F. Hadaegh and B. Kang. In the Proceedings of the 2011 American Astronautical Society Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference.

"Enhancement of a Convex Powered Descent Guidance Algorithm to Include Speed and Attitude Constraints." J. M. Carson III, B. Acikmese and L. Blackmore. In the Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference 2011.

"Lossless Convexification of Powered-Descent Guidance with Non-Convex Thrust Bound and Pointing Constraints." J. M. Carson III, B. Acikmese and L. Blackmore. Accepted for publication in the 2011 American Control Conference.

"Cooperative Control with Adaptive Graph Laplacians for Spacecraft Formation Flying." I. Chang, S-J Chung and L. Blackmore. In the Proceedings of the 2010 Conference on Decision and Control.

"Chance Constrained Finite Horizon Optimal Control with Nonconvex Constraints." M. Ono, L. Blackmore, and B. C. Williams. In the Proceedings of the 2010 American Control Conference.

"Lossless Convexification of a Class of Non-Convex Optimal Control Problems for Linear Systems." B. Acikmese and L. Blackmore. In the Proceedings of the 2010 American Control Conference.

"Global Reachability and Path Planning for Planetary Exploration with Montgolfiere Balloons." L. Blackmore, Y. Kuwata, C. Assad, N. Fathpour, C. Newman and A. Elfes. In the proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

"Probabilistic Motion Planning of Balloons in Strong, Uncertain Wind Fields." M. Wolf, L. Blackmore, Y. Kuwata, N. Fathpour, C. Newman, A. Elfes. In the proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

"Implications of Wind-Assisted Aerial Navigation for Titan Mission Planning and Science Exploration." A. Elfes, K. Reh, P. Beauchamp, N. Fathpour, L. Blackmore, C. Newman, Y. Kuwata, M. Wolf, and C. Assad. In the Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, 2010.

"Convex Chance Constrained Predictive Control without Sampling. " L. Blackmore and M. Ono. In the proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference 2009.

"Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Attitude Estimation in Fractionated Spacecraft Systems. " L. Blackmore and F. Y. Hadaegh. In the proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference 2009.

"Decomposition Algorithm for Global Reachability Analysis on a Time-Varying Graph with an Application to Planetary Exploration. " Y. Kuwata, L. Blackmore, M. Wolf, N. Fathpour, C. Newman and A. Elfes. In the proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2009.

"Enhancements on the Convex Programming Based Powered Descent Guidance Algorithm for Mars Landing." Behcet Acikmese, Lars Blackmore, Daniel P. Scharf, and Aron Wolf. In the proceedings of the AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference 2008.

"Robust Path Planning and Feedback Design under Stochastic Uncertainty." L. Blackmore. In the proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference 2008. Best Paper in Session.

"Model Learning for Switching Linear Systems with Autonomous Mode Transitions." L. Blackmore, S. Gil, S. Chung and B. C. Williams. In the proceedings of the Control and Decision Conference, 2007.

"Optimal, Robust Predictive Control of Nonlinear Systems under Probabilistic Uncertainty using Particles." L. Blackmore and Brian C. Williams. In the proceedings of the American Control Conference 2007.

"A Probabilistic Particle Control Approach to Optimal, Robust Predictive Control." L. Blackmore. In the proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference 2006. Best Student Paper Award winner.

"Active Estimation for Switching Linear Dynamic Systems." L. Blackmore, S. Rajamanoharan and B. C. Williams. In the proceedings of the Control and Decision Conference 2006.

"Finite Horizon Control Design for Optimal Discrimination between Several Models." L. Blackmore and B. C. Williams. In the proceedings of the Control and Decision Conference 2006. Best Paper in Session.

"A Probabilistic Approach to Optimal Robust Path Planning with Obstacles." L. Blackmore, H. Li and B. C. Williams. In the proceedings of the American Control Conference 2006.

"Optimal Manipulator Path Planning with Obstacles using Disjunctive Programming." L. Blackmore and B. C. Williams. In the proceedings of the American Control Conference 2006.