Palunko, I: Load Transportation Using Aerial Robots

reinforcement learning, optimization theory. She defended her Ph.D dissertation in August 2012 entitled Agile load transportation systems using aerial robots.

Mr. Patricio Cruz is a research assistant in the MARHES Lab in the University of New Mexico (UNM). He is also currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UNM. In 2005, he received the B.S. degree in Electronics and Control Engineering from Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito-Ecuador. His B.S. thesis focused on the implementation of an articulated robot that mimics the movements of a worm. He worked as design engineer in Autotrack, an Ecuadorian company developing intelligent transportation system solutions, and then as electrical maintenance technician in the "El Comercio" newspaper plant. This newspaper is the second most important in Ecuador, his native country. In 2007, he started teaching undergraduate courses and labs at the College of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Escuela Politécnica Nacional. In 2010, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in the Fulbright Faculty Development Program. He obtained a M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from UNM in 2012. The main objective of his M.Sc. thesis was the design and implementation of a real-time control architecture for a multi-vehicle aerial test bed based on the AscTec Hummingbird quadrotors. His research interests include heterogeneous robotic systems, rotor-craft unmanned vehicles, hybrid systems, optimal and adaptive control, cooperative control, and multi-agent coordination.

Dr. Rafael Fierro is an associate professor of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico where he has been since 2007. He received a M.Sc. degree in control engineering from the University of Bradford, England and a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas-Arlington. Prior to joining UNM, he held a postdoctoral appointment with the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania (1999-2001) and a faculty position with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oklahoma State University (2001-2007). His research interests include nonlinear and adaptive control, robotics, hybrid systems, autonomous vehicles and multi-agent systems. He directs the Multi-Agent, Robotics, Hybrid and Embedded Systems (MARHES) Laboratory. Rafael Fierro was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, a 2004 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the 2007 International Society of Automation (ISA) Transactions Best Paper Award. He is serving as associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. Dr. Fierro is a senior member of the IEEE.