Savvas G. Loizou
Research		Teaching	Schedule	Publications
Current Projects
Under Preparation…
Former Projects
Safety, Complexity and Responsibility based design and validation of highly automated Air Traffic Management (i-Fly) iFly is a specific targeted research project within the 6th Framework Programme (Priority 1.3.1.4.g Aeronautics and Space), funded by the European Commission. During recent years the ATM community research trend is to direct large airborne self separation research projects to situations of less dense airspace. Typical examples of this trend are the EC research projects MFF (Mediterranean Free Flight) and ASSTAR (Advanced Safe Separation Technology and Algorithms). This is remarkable because airborne self separation has been "invented" as a potential solution for high density airspace. iFly aims to develop a step change in this trend, through a systematic exploitation and further development of the advanced mathematical techniques that have emerged within the HYBRIDGE project of EC's 5th Framework Programme. For en-route traffic, iFly has the objective to develop both an advanced airborne self separation design and a highly automated ATM design for en-route traffic, which takes advantage of autonomous aircraft operation capabilities and which is aimed to manage a three to six times increase in current en-route traffic levels. This incorporates analysis of safety, complexity and pilot/controller responsibilities and assessment of ground and airborne system requirements and which make part of an overall validation plan. The proposed iFly research combines expertise in air transport human factors, safety and economics with analytical and Monte Carlo simulation methodologies providing for "implementation" decision-making, standardisation and regulatory frameworks. The research is aimed at supporting SESAR and actively disseminates the results among the ATM research community. Scalable swarms of autonomous robots and mobile sensors (SWARMS) The SWARMS project brings together experts in artificial intelligence, control theory, robotics, systems engineering and biology with the goal of understanding swarming behaviors in nature and applications of biologically-inspired models of swarm behaviors to large networked groups of autonomous vehicles. Our main goal is to develop a framework and methodology for the analysis of swarming behavior in biology and the synthesis of bio-inspired swarming behavior for engineered systems. This multi-university project is led by the University of Pennsylvania and is performed in collaboration with the Massachusets Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Yale University. SWARMS is an ARO MURI funded project Distributed Control and Stochastic Analysis of Hybrid Systems Supporting Safety Critical Real-Time Systems Design (HYBRIDGE) The 21st century finds Europe facing a number of remarkable changes, many of which involve large complex real-time systems the management and control of which undergoes a natural trend of becoming more and more distributed while at the same time the safety criticality of these systems for human society tends to increase. However good the control design for these systems will be, humans are the only ones carrying responsibility for the operational safety. This implies that control system designs for safety critical operations have to be embedded within sound safety management systems such that the level of safety stays under control of humans. The objective of HYBRIDGE is to develop the methodologies to accomplish this, and to demonstrate their use in support of advanced air traffic management design. In addition to direct application to air traffic management, these contributions form the nucleus for further research and development into a complex, uncertain system theory, and into application of this theory to distributed control of other real time complex systems such as communication, computer and power networks. HYBRIDGE is a project within the 5th Framework Programme (iii) (Distributed Control), funded by the European Commission Miniature co-operative robots advancing towards the Nano-range (MICRON) The goal of the MiCRoN Project is to develop a system that is based on a cluster (5 to 10) of small (cm³) mobile autonomous robots. These wireless microrobots, each equipped with onboard electronics for control and communication, can co-operate to accomplish a range of tasks associated with assembly and processing from the nano- to the micro-range. The MiCRoN project is funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies arm of the IST Programme of the European Commission. Autonomous Inspection of Subsea Telecommunication Cables, Power Cables and Pipelines with Underwater Robotic Vehicles (AUTOTRACKER ) Autotracker is an EU sponsored research project that has been initiated by Maridan and Innovatum. The main purpose of this project is to provide the offshore oil and telecommunications industries with a complete AUV-based package for locating and tracking submarine pipeline and cable installations during surveys and maintenance tasks.