Research Interests
Our research interests are in space systems, artificial intelligence, and systems engineering and design. Our core interests are right at the intersection of the three, in the development of new collaborative and mixed-initiative approaches for designing complex space systems. Of special interest lately are: 1) research on developing new cognitive assistants and understanding what works and what doesn’t, and how to best interact with them; 2) new approaches to fuse data and knowledge (e.g., in the form of logical rules) for design.
What do students in the SEAK Lab learn about?
Most students in the lab will be familiar with many if not most of the topics below, although the particular level of expertise for each topic will vary depending on the student:
- Space Mission Analysis and Design
- Systems Engineering, Architecture, and Design
- Global optimization
- Machine learning
- Knowledge-based systems
- Visual and data analytics
- Human-agent interaction
- Planning and scheduling
- Earth Observation
Research Projects
Our research is funded primarily by NASA and NSF. The following is an incomplete list of our recent and current research projects:
- Virtual Assistant for Spacecraft Anomaly Treatment During Long-Duration Exploration Missions (NASA 80NSSC19K0656, 2019-2023)
- Collaborative Research: Knowledge And Data-Driven Design Of Mechanical Metamaterials (NSF CMMI-1825521, 2018-2021)
- TAT-C ML: Tradespace Analysis Tool for Constellations with Machine Learning (NASA NNH16ZDA001N-AIST, 2017-2019)
- The Daphne cognitive assistant for early formulation of Earth observation missions
- Intelligent data understanding for architecture analysis of entry, descent, and landing (NASA NSTRF NNX16AM51H, 2017-2021)
- Improved human-computer interaction for design of complex systems (NSF CMMI-1635253, 2016-2019)
- Design and Optimization of Space System Architectures: Applying and Extracting Lessons Learned (NASA NSTRF NNX16AM51H, 2016-2018)
- Constellation design for the NASA TROPICS mission (NASA NNH12ZDA006O-EVI3, subcontract from MIT Lincoln Lab, 2016-2018)
- Cityplot: Visualization of high-dimensional design spaces with virtual reality
- Human-machine collaborative feature extraction for engineering design
- Multi-objective design exploration of next-Gen Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)