Curriculum Vitae
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Robotics & Controls Research Engineer — safety-critical control and motion planning for autonomous systems and robotics.
Research Interests
Safety-critical control and motion planning of autonomous and robotic systems; distributed control and estimation; learning and decision making under uncertainty. Methods span nonlinear, adaptive, and optimal control, control barrier functions and Hamilton–Jacobi reachability, trajectory optimization and planning, and multi-vehicle coordination for aerial and ground robot autonomy.
Education
M.S., Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering — Oklahoma State University, 2016–2018
- Concentration: Control Theory & Robotics (GPA 3.9/4.0)
- Advisor: Dr. He Bai; Co-Advisor: Dr. Jose A. Acosta; Committee: Dr. Rushikesh Kamalapurkar
- Thesis: Cooperative Aerial Manipulation with Force Control and Attitude Stabilization
- Award: Best Graduate Research, MAE Research Symposium, 2018
B.S., Mechanical Engineering — McNeese State University, 2011–2015
- Minor: Mathematics (Major GPA 3.8/4.0)
Publications
Thapa S., Bai H., Acosta J.A. "Cooperative Aerial Manipulation with Decentralized Adaptive Force-Consensus Control." Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems (JINT), 2020.
Thapa S., Self R., Bai H., Kamalapurkar R. "Cooperative Manipulation of an Unknown Payload with Concurrent Mass and Drag Force Estimation." IEEE Control Systems Letters (L-CSS), 2019.
Thapa S., Bai H., Acosta J.A. "Cooperative Aerial Load Transport with Attitude Stabilization." American Control Conference (ACC), 2018.
Thapa S., Bai H., Acosta J.A. "Cooperative Aerial Load Transport with Force Control." IFAC Workshop on Networked & Autonomous Air & Space Systems (NAASS), 2018.
Thapa S., Bai H., Acosta J.A. "Force Control in Cooperative Aerial Manipulation." IEEE International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), 2018.
In Preparation
Thapa S. "Certified Handoff Between Global Search and Local Planning for Automated Parallel Parking." In preparation for the American Control Conference (ACC) 2027.
Thapa S. "A Practical State-Machine Based Event PID Controller." In preparation for the American Control Conference (ACC) 2027.
Thapa S. "A Comparative Tutorial on Autonomous Quadrotor Trajectory Tracking Control: PID, State-Dependent LQR, Geometric SE(3), and Nonlinear Adaptive Control." In preparation for arXiv.
Research Experience
Visiting Researcher — University of Texas at Arlington, ETAIC Lab
Department of Electrical Engineering | Sep 2026 – Present
- Research host: Dr. H. Eric Tseng (NAE Member, Distinguished University Professor).
- Design, implementation, and experimental validation of safety-critical control algorithms for autonomous systems and robotics.
- Compositional safety for vehicle dynamics: composing actuator-level guard architectures (input boundedness, integrator boundedness, bumpless transfer) with state-space safety filters (CBF-QP, reachability-based filters) for end-to-end safety under embedded deployment constraints.
Independent Research — Autonomous Systems
Jersey City, NJ | Feb 2026 – Aug 2026
- Design, MATLAB/Simulink implementation, and real-time validation of quadrotor trajectory tracking controllers (PID, state-dependent LQR, geometric SE(3), nonlinear adaptive) in Flightmare, Gazebo, and ROS.
- Formulation of a closed-form single-trial feasibility predicate for clothoid-based planning in low-speed automated parking.
- Preparation of three papers for submission to IEEE RA-L, IEEE IV, and arXiv.
Tech Lead & Senior Controls Research Engineer — Amogy Inc.
Brooklyn, NY | Aug 2022 – Feb 2026
- Designed and deployed a safety-aware discrete-event state-machine wrapper for legacy PID control loops, establishing analytical properties of input boundedness, integrator boundedness, and bumpless mode transfer. Deployed across multiple safety-critical autonomous systems with ISO 26262 functional-safety considerations.
- Head-to-head evaluation of the state-machine wrapper against control-barrier-function safety filters on systems where a clean analytical CBF construction is unavailable due to lack of model or invariant set.
- Research on nonlinear, hybrid, and predictive control frameworks for safety-critical autonomous operation; implementation on automotive-grade real-time hardware (dSPACE, VCU).
- Tools: C/C++, Python, MATLAB/Simulink, Stateflow, dSPACE, CAN, TCP/IP.
Research Engineer, Autonomous Driving (Planning & Controls) — Ford Motor Company, Research & Advanced Engineering
Dearborn, MI | Jan 2021 – Jun 2022
- Advisor: Dr. H. Eric Tseng (NAE Member).
- Developed a continuous-curvature (clothoid-based) path planner and a nonlinear rear-wheel feedback lateral controller for autonomous parallel parking and auto-hitch (SAE L2/L3 features).
- Prototyped trajectory tracking controllers including pure-pursuit, LQR, PD, backstepping, and nonlinear feedback control; validated in simulation and on-vehicle in real time.
- Designed state machines and control-barrier-function based safety controllers for autonomous function transitions and fault handling.
- Developed V2V networking and real-time TCP/UDP interfaces for cooperative localization and collision avoidance.
- Tools: Simulink, Stateflow, ROS, C/C++, TCP/IP, dSPACE, CANape, CANalyzer.
Senior Controls Engineer, Autonomy — The Drone Racing League
New York, NY | Jul 2019 – Jan 2021
- Led research, design, and implementation of trajectory tracking, attitude stabilization, and trajectory generation algorithms for autonomous quadrotor UAVs.
- Implemented state-dependent LQR/LQG, nonlinear PID, model reference adaptive control (MRAC), geometric SE(3) control, and model predictive control (MPC).
- Built ROS/Gazebo and PX4 SITL simulation environments and conducted real flight tests on quadrotor hardware.
- Implemented C++ real-time solvers for the algebraic Riccati equation using Schur decomposition, eigenvalue decomposition, and Newton iteration.
- Tools: C/C++, ROS, PX4, Gazebo, Eigen, CMake, Python, MATLAB/Simulink.
Graduate Research Assistant, CoRAL Lab — Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK | Aug 2016 – Jun 2019
- Research on cooperative control and estimation for multi-robot systems, focused on multi-UAV cooperative manipulation of a shared unknown payload.
- Developed decentralized adaptive controllers for cooperative aerial payload transport with no direct inter-robot communication, handling unknown payload mass and drag.
- Developed a concurrent-learning adaptive control algorithm for real-time parameter estimation, relaxing the persistent-excitation requirement while preserving parameter convergence.
- Five peer-reviewed publications: IEEE L-CSS (with CDC presentation), JINT, ACC, ICUAS, IFAC NAASS.
Robotics Controls Engineer — DEKA Research & Development
Manchester, NH | Mar 2019 – Jul 2019
- Autonomous robots, offline path planning, and controls.
Teaching
Technical Skills
- Programming: C/C++, Python, MATLAB/Simulink, Stateflow
- Robotics & Simulation: ROS, Gazebo, PX4-SITL, Flightmare, Crazyflie UAVs, Eigen
- Real-Time Hardware: dSPACE, MicroAutoBox II, VCU, Raspberry Pi, Jetson TX2/Xavier
- Automotive & Communication: CAN, CANape, CANalyzer, CarSim, TCP/UDP networking, Git
Certifications
- Functional Safety Certification, 2024
- Udacity: Intro to Self-Driving Cars, 2021; Flying Car and Autonomous Flight Engineer (in progress)
Awards & Fellowships
- Ross Fellowship, Purdue Aerospace Engineering PhD, Fall 2021 (deferred, later declined)
- Dean’s Fellowship, CU Boulder ECE PhD, Fall 2021 (declined)
- Full GRA-supported PhD admissions at Georgia Tech (ECE), UIUC (Aerospace), University of Maryland (Aerospace), and University of Delaware (Mechanical), Fall 2021 (declined)
- Best Graduate Research, MAE Research Symposium, Oklahoma State University, 2018
- Winner, Nautilus Engineering Design Challenge, 2014–2015
- First Place, McNeese Undergraduate Research Competition, 2015
- H.R. Smith Engineering Scholarship
Graduate Coursework
Linear Systems · Nonlinear System Analysis and Control · Robotics: Kinematics, Dynamics, and Control · Digital Control Systems · Atmospheric Flight Control · Guidance and Control of Aerospace Vehicles · Stochastic Systems · Intro to Modern Analysis · Optimal Control (audit) · Adaptive Control (audit)
Peer Reviewer
- American Control Conference (ACC): 2017–2022, 2025
- IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC): 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022
- IEEE International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS): 2018, 2021
- IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): 2018, 2020, 2021
- Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems (JINT): 2020
References
Available upon request.
