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Y. Kim's research webpage

Yoonsoo Kim, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering
University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa
Office: M511, Tel: +27 (0)21 808 4265, Fax: +27 (0)21 808 4958
Email: ykim at sun dot ac dot za
Official website: www.mecheng.sun.ac.za/AboutUs/personnel/yk.html

Research interest

My main research theme is "coordinated control for multi-agent systems". In other words, I'm interested in developing efficient control mechanisms for the systems which involve many sub-systems. Here, agent or system can be any kind of dynamical objects, e.g. car, airplane, satellite, telescope, UAV (unmanned air vehicle), which can cooperate or work together to achieve their common global objective efficiently. Over the past five years or so, I had a look at several theoretical issues in relation to three sub-themes: path planning, task allocation and network optimization. I'm currently focused more on practical aspects of the three themes, in order to verify and identify practically significant issues arsing in this area of research.

In particular, I'm also developing robot soccer activities in Stellenbosch, as robot soccer can offer a nice test bed which demonstrates the aforementioned multi-agent system theory. In this regard, I need a MSc or PhD student who has a mechanical, mechatronic, electrical, computer science or mathematics background and has strong interests in robot soccer. Full or partial funding may be available. Please drop by my office if you want to have a chat.

Journal writings (selected)

Bisection algorithm of increasing algebraic connectivity by adding an edge, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, to appear in December 2009.

Robust target tracking using distributed UAV networks, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering, to appear (with D.-W. Gu and I. Postlethwaite).

How tight is sphere-packed formation flying?, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering, to appear (with D.-W. Gu and I. Postlethwaite).

Spectral radius minimization for optimal average consensus and output feedback stabilization, Automatica, 45 (6): 1379-1386, 2009 (with D.-W. Gu and I. Postlethwaite).

On the convex parametrization of spacecraft orientation in presence of constraints and its applications, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic systems, to appear (with M. Mesbahi, G. Singh and F. Y. Hadaegh).

Real-time path planning with limited information for autonomous unmanned air vehicles, Automatica, 44 (3): 696-712, 2008 (with D.-W. Gu and I. Postlethwaite)

Real-time optimal mission scheduling and flight path selection, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 52(6): 1119-1123, 2007 (with D.-W. Gu and I. Postlethwaite).

On maximizing the second smallest eigenvalue of a state-dependent Laplacian, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 51(1): 116-120, 2006 (with M. Mesbahi).

Quadratically constrained attitude control via semidefinite programming, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 49(5): 731-735, 2004 (with M. Mesbahi).

Dual-spacecraft formation flying in deep space: optimal collision-free reconfigurations, Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 26 (2): 375-379, 2003 (with M. Mesbahi)

Recent conference writings

Fault-tolerant cooperative target tracking in distributed UAV networks, IFAC World Congress, 6-11 July 2008, Seoul, Korea (with D.-W. Gu and I. Postlethwaite).

Moving ground target tracking on dense obstacle areas using UAVs, IFAC World Congress, 6-11 July 2008, Seoul, Korea (with Jongrae Kim).

Bisection algorithm of increasing algebraic connectivity by adding an edge, Mediterranean Control Conference, 24-26 June 2009, Greece.

Teaching

Control Systems 344 (2nd Semester 2007, 2008)

Control Systems 314 and Modelling 324 (1st Semester 2008)

Control Systems 354 (2nd Semester 2009)

Modelling 334 (1st Semester 2009)

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