Welcome to the Pangborn Advanced Controls Lab
We are a systems and control lab at The Pennsylvania State University, directed by Assistant Professor Herschel C. Pangborn. Broadly speaking, we study the science of automated decision-making in systems, optimizing the design and real-time operation (i.e., control) of systems with high societal relevance.
Our research enables new paradigms in the performance, safety, efficiency, and sustainability of vehicles, power grids, and buildings. Key to achieving this objective is our systems-level approach to control and design, which enables coordination across multiple components, timescales, and physical domains. The systems we study include autonomous ground/aerial robots, electrified aircraft, hybrid cars, uncrewed undersea vehicles, microgrids, and thermal management systems in buildings.
In addition to achieving our technological goals, we also train the next generation of engineers to address exigent challenges and opportunities in control theory, energy systems, and sustainability. This inspires our student-centric mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students in research and professional development. Our program is oriented around providing students with the experience and expertise to achieve their career goals following graduation.
Our systems-based approach intersects three areas:
Controls and Optimization
Modern systems are often too complex for decision-making to be governed by a single, centralized controller. We develop hierarchical and distributed control frameworks that employ a network of communicating controllers to coordinate decision-making across multiple components, timescales, and physical domains. Predictive control methods allow these frameworks to take proactive action in optimizing system behavior. We also specialize in the control of systems that exhibit switched dynamic behavior and/or have actuators with discrete modes of operation. Contributions to control theory establish guarantees on performance and safety, while closed-loop experimental application bridges the theory-practice gap. We also investigate systems-level design approaches to optimize architecture selection and component sizing for energy systems.
Safety-Assured and Energy-Aware Autonomy
Autonomous vehicles spanning air, land, and sea applications must be capable of safely navigating their environments (e.g., avoiding obstacles) while operating within energy limitations (e.g., stored fuel or battery capacity). Our research in this area is developing algorithms for path planning and control of autonomous vehicles that respect both safety and energy constraints. In addition to advancing the fundamental theory of these algorithms and evaluating them in simulation environments, we are also developing testbeds for their experimental validation.
Thermal and Electro-Thermal Systems
The electrification of energy systems is a technological megatrend that has transformed buildings, aircraft, automobiles, and naval ships. With electrification, the ability to manage thermal and electro-thermal interactions within energy systems has increasingly become the limiting factor of their capabilities. The modeling, design, and control approaches developed by our lab enable increased power/energy density and decreased operating costs, while bringing new paradigms in performance, safety, efficiency, and sustainability.
Dynamic Modeling
We employ a combination of physics-based and data-driven methods to capture energy system dynamics across a range of timescales and physical domains. In modeling energy systems, we focus on capturing the most salient dynamic behaviors while retaining a level of computational simplicity that allows models to be leveraged for system-level design and real-time feedback control.
Recent News
09/2024:
The PAC Lab welcomes undergraduate researcher Rejat Krishnan.
08/2024:
The PAC Lab welcomes graduate researchers Ben Hudson and Alex Haefner!
07/2024:
The PAC Lab presented three papers at the 2024 American Control Conference in Toronto.
07/2024:
The PAC Lab presented a paper at the 2024 IFAC Conference on Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems in Boulder.
07/2024:
Congrats to Ph.D. student Andrew Thompson for passing his comprehensive exam!
07/2024:
Congrats to Adim Seeler on completing his M.S. degree! Adim will be joining P.C. Krause & Associates as a Lead Engineer.
07/2024:
Congrats to Jonah Glunt on completing his M.S. degree! Jonah will be continuing with the PAC Lab to pursue a Ph.D.
06/2024:
The PAC Lab welcomes graduate researcher Sarah Chekan!
05/2024:
Congrats to Kaelea Hayes on receiving an Erickson Discovery Grant!
04/2024:
Congrats to Jonah Glunt for passing the ME Ph.D. Qualifying Exam!
02/2024:
The PAC Lab welcomes undergraduate researcher Liam McIntyre!
12/2023:
The PAC Lab presented a paper at the 2023 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Singapore.
12/2023:
Congrats to Ph.D. student Jake Siefert on his successful dissertation defense!
12/2023:
Congrats to Andrew Thompson on completing his M.S. degree! Andrew will be continuing with the PAC Lab to pursue a Ph.D.
12/2023:
Peraton wrote a case study to highlight their collaborations with the PAC Lab.
10/2023:
Jonah Glunt was featured in a PSU news article recognizing his NDSEG Fellowship.
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