Dr. Wen-Hua Chen's Home Page

Welcome to my home page! You can contact me at W.Chen@lboro.ac.uk.

BAE Systems EPSRC PhD studentship

Control System Engineer (27 months, salary range £27-35K)

 

My research interests mainly focus on developing advanced tools for system and control engineering and on providing innovative solutions for real engineering systems, in particular in aeronautical, space and automotive engineering. I have been working very closely with the European Space Agency (ESA) and several space companies on projects like robust attitude orbit control for spacecraft with large flexible structure, and attitude control for low-Earth-orbiting satellites using magnetic torquers.

Recently I spent most of my time on navigation, flight control and mission planning for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). With the support of the government, industry and the university, an UAV lab is being developed in supporting our activities in this area, which consists of optical systems, various ground vehicles and aerial vehicles, and ground control station. Some video clips are also available.

Current research topics on UAVs include

·        Real-time mission planning/reconfiguration

·        Visual based/aided navigation for autonomous landing and recovery

·        Multivehicle co-ordination and control such as formation fly and rendezvous

·        Autonomous soaring glider using thermals

·        Autonomous quadrotor development

·        Verification and certification of advanced techniques for UAVs

Some of the work is currently supported by EPSRC, BAE Systems, Thales UK, and Triumph.

Teaching

1. Part C Avionic Systems

2. Part C Flight Control Systems

3. Part D: Flight Dynamics and Control

 

Administration:

Director of Research Programme

 

Research Students/Associates

Post Doc:

Cunjia Liu

Current Ph.D. students

  1. Simon Howroyd. Full cells for man portable autonomous aircraft systems. (2011-). Jointly supervised with Prof. Rui Chen.

 

  1. Matthew Coombes (2011-).

                              Project: Forced landing.

 

3.      James Dunthorne (2011-)

                              Project: Collision avoidance and its verification for civil unmanned aircraft systems.

                  Jointly supervised with Dr Sarah Dunnett.

 

  1. Jiaxiang Yue (2011-)

Project: Verification of health monitoring algorithms.

 

  1. Jian Fu (2010-)

                           Project: Sliding model control for helicopters

 

  1. Owen McAree (2009-)

Project: Terminal region operations for unmanned aircraft systems

 

 

  1. Siva Srikanthakumar (2008-)

                              Project: Nonlinear verification of flight control systems

 

  1. Jonathan Clarke  (2008-).

                              Project  Autonomous soaring unmanned aerial vehicles using thermals.

 

Former students/associates

·         Dr. Lei Guo (Post Doc, now professor at Beihang University, China)

·         Dr. Xiaobing Hu (Ph.D. student, now Post Doc at Warwick University)

·         Dr. Michael Schinkel  (MSc student, now manager in Research Technology and Intellectual Property Management,  DaimlerChrysler, Germany)

·         Dong Hu.  Project: Disturbance observer based control techniques

·         Dr. Andreas Gazis. Project:  Modelling and advanced engine control using variable valve timing

·         Dr. Mark Wood. Project: Model Predictive Control for magnetic attitude control of low Earth orbit satellites.

·         Dr. Cunjia Liu Project: Multi-vehicle coordination and control

·         Dr. James Poole: Project: Real-time mission re-configuration.

·         Dr. Jun Yang: Project: Nonlinear disturbance observer based control (joint with Prof. Shihua Li at Southeast University)

 

Grants held

1.   Integration and Flight Test of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells on Small Scale Unmanned Aircraft. Adelan Ltd. £20,400. 01/04/2012-31/03/2014.

 

2.   Towards More Autonomy for Unmanned Vehicles: Situational Awareness and Decision Making under Uncertainty. EPSRC. 01/03/2012--29/02/2016. £1,006,188 (PI. CoIs: Lisa Jackson, Baibing Li, Paul Chung, Qinggang Meng, Mohammed Quddus).

 

3.   Closed-loop nonlinear Kalman filtering techniques for deep integration of pressure sensors and MEMS inertial sensors. MoD Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. £58K. 01/03/2012-30/09/2012.

 

4.   Man-portable unmanned aircraft systems powered by fuel cells. EPSRC DTC in Hydrogen, Fuel Cell and Their Appliactions. 12/2011-11/2015.(PI, CoI Prof. Rui Chen)

 

5.   Development of a demonstrator for coordination of multiple unmanned vehicles. EPSRC bridging fund. £11,629, 11/2011-02/2012.

 

6.   Collision Avoidance and Its Verification for Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Thales UK Ltd. 01/10/2011-30/09/2014.

 

7.   Terminal Region Operation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems. EPSRC/BAE Systems. 01/10/2011-30/03/2015.

 

8.   Condition and Health Monitoring of Electromechanical Actuators. TSB/Triumph Actuation and Motion Control Systems UK Ltd. 2011-2014 (PI, CoI Dr Dunnett)

 

9.   Modelling and Verification of Electrical Actuation Systems for UAVs. Triumph Actuation & Motion Control Systems. May--October, 2011.

 

10.   Support for Military Autonomous Systems Research. BAE Systems. 2009-2010.

 

11.   Branch and Bound based Optimisation for Validation of Platform Health Management. EPSRC with BAE Systems as industrial partner. 2009-2012.

 

12.   Autonomous Algorithms using Receding Horizon Techniques. EPSRC with BAE Systems as industrial partner. 2009-2012.

 

13.   Phase Mission Modelling. BAE Systems/EPSRC. 2007-2010 (with Prof. John Andrews).

 

14.   Model Predictive Control for Magnetic Attitude Control of GOCE Satellites. European Space Agency. 2004-2007.

 

15.   Attitude Orbit Control Systems for Spacecraft with Large Flimsy Appendages. European Space Agency. ESA ITT AO/1-4274/02/NL/LvH. (joint investigator: European Aerospace and Defence System (EADS) Astrium Ltd). 2003-2004.

 

  1. Disturbance Observer Based Control of  Nonlinear Systems with Unknown Disturbances.  EPSRC GR/N31580, 2000-2002.

 

 Research Interests

Theoretic interests:

1. Real-time scheduling and planning under uncertain and dynamic environments with incomplete information

2. Robust control using frequency domain methods (QFT)

3.  Disturbance observer based control for uncertain and nonlinear systems

4. Model predictive control (receding horizon) for linear, nonlinear and time-delay systems

5. Integrated guidance, navigation and control

 

Applications:

  1. Autonomy and intelligence of autonomous vehicles including spacecraft and UAVs
  2. Space systems, aircraft and missiles
  3. Air traffic management
  4. Low emission engines and energy systems

Professional involvements:

Senior Member of IEEE

Member of IEEE Technical Committee on Aerospace Control

Member of National Technical Committee for Autonomous Systems

Member of Editorial Board for a couple of journals

Panel member and Evaluator for EU projects

Involved in organisation of about 20 international conferences

 Publications

 

Autonomous Systems Laboratory

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