Esen Yel, a systems engineering Ph.D. student at UVA Engineering, will give the prestigious Link Lab Student Seminar in recognition of her work to advance drones and self-driving vehicles, or autonomous systems. The seminar is the preeminent talk given by a student in the 280+ person lab; being chosen as the presenter is also a hallmark Link Lab award in recognition of excellence in research.Yel's research uses model-based frameworks and machine learning to develop autonomous systems that can anticipate situations and make better decisions. She has conducted extensive testing and simulations of her techniques that demonstrate the system's ability to use the learned behaviors to avoid an unsafe situation.
Yel's advisor is Nicola Bezzo, Link Lab member and assistant professor with joint appointments in the departments of Engineering Systems and Environment and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He heads up the Autonomous Mobile Robots Lab where Yel has been a researcher on his team for the past four years.
“I have had the opportunity to advise students from top engineering schools, including University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Georgia Tech,” said Bezzo. “Esen is one of the top students I have ever advised. She is also one of the best Ph.D. students in my research group.”
Yel's research has been published in top conferences, like the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, and robotics journals, including Robotics and Automation Magazine and the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems.
Leidos partnered with Link Lab in offering this seminar for the first time in December 2020 and is the corporate sponsor of this event. In a common goal of promoting research excellence in cyber-physical systems, the seminar seeks to highlight a senior Ph.D. student conducting cyber-physical systems research in the Link Lab. The seminar also comingles Link Lab partners and Link Lab's many research groups to foster further collaboration while offering graduate students insight into potential areas of study and research.