Hamid Jafarnejad Sani (hjafarne)

Hamid Jafarnejad Sani

Assistant Professor

Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Carnegie Laboratory 211
(201) 216-8315

Education

  • PhD (2018) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Mechanical Engineering)
  • MS (2013) University of Calgary (Mechanical Engineering)
  • BS (2011) University of Tehran (Mechanical Engineering)

Research

My research interests include control and planning, robotics, cyber-physical security, and machine learning. In particular, I am interested in resilient and secure control of intelligent autonomous systems in uncertain and adversarial environments.

Experience

Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, August 2019 - present

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, January 2019 - July 2019

Research/Teaching Assistant, Advanced Controls Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, August 2013 - December 2018

Research/Teaching Assistant, Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, September 2011 - June 2013

Institutional Service

  • RCT Committee for Dynamics, Vibration, and Acoustics Member
  • Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) Member
  • CCT Committee for Controls Member
  • CCT Committee for Dynamics Member
  • RCT Committee for Robotics Member
  • ME Undergraduate Committee Member
  • Senior Design Task Force Member
  • ME Faculty Search Committee Member
  • ME Open House Lab Tour Member

Professional Service

  • Journal of Frontiers in Control Engineering Editorial Board Member

Professional Societies

  • ASEE – American Society for Engineering Education Member
  • AIAA – American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Member
  • IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Member

Grants, Contracts and Funds

2022, National Science Foundation, DCSD 2137753, "Collaborative Research: Towards Attack-Resilient Vision-Guided Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: An Observability Analysis Approach," $309,811 (Lead-PI).

2023, IARPA (Raytheon as prime), “Neural Implicit Rendering from Varying Altitudes with Nimble Algorithms,” $1,507,358 (Stevens Co-PI).

Selected Publications

CONFERENCE PROCEEDING

1. H. -J. Yoon, H. Jafarnejadsani and P. Voulgaris, "Learning When to Use Adaptive Adversarial Image Perturbations Against Autonomous Vehicles," IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Detroit, MI, 2023 (accepted).
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.13667.pdf

2. M. Bahrami, H. Jafarnejadsani, "Detection of Stealthy Adversaries for Networked Unmanned Aerial Vehicles," International Conference on Unmanned Aerial Systems (ICUAS), Dubrovnik, Croatia, 2022.
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICUAS54217.2022.9836208

3. H. Gu, H. Jafarnejadsani, "Multi-level Adaptation for Automatic Landing with Engine Failure under Turbulent Weather," the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference at SciTech, National Harbor, MD, 2023.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.04132.pdf

4. Q. Zhao, G. Zhang, H. Jafarnejadsani, L. Wang, "A Modular Continuum Manipulator for Aerial Manipulation and Perching," International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC-CIE), St. Louis, Missouri, August 2022.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.06246.pdf

5. H-J Yoon, H. Jafarnejadsani, P. G. Voulgaris, "Learning When to Use Adaptive Adversarial Image Perturbations toward Autonomous Vehicles," IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2022 (submitted).
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.03834.pdf

6. M. Bahrami, H. Jafarnejadsani, "Privacy-Preserving Stealthy Attack Detection in Multi-Agent Control Systems," IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Austin, Texas, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CDC45484.2021.9683427

7. Y. Mao, H. Jafarnejadsani, P. Zhao, E. Akyol, and N. Hovakimyan, "Detectability of Intermittent Zero-Dynamics Attack in Networked Control Systems," IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Nice, France, December 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CDC40024.2019.9029997

8. X. Fang, N. Wan, H. Jafarnejadsani, D. Sun, F. Holzapfel, and N. Hovakimyan, "Emergency landing trajectory optimization for fixed-wing delivery UAV under engine failure," AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition, San Diego, California, January 2019.
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2019-0959

9. H. Jafarnejadsani, H. Lee, N. Hovakimyan, and P. G. Voulgaris, "A multirate adaptive control for MIMO systems with application to cyber-physical security," IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Miami, Florida, December 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CDC.2018.8619570

10. H. Jafarnejadsani, J. Kim, N. Hovakimyan, and V. Kulkarni, "Load capacity improvements in nucleic acid based systems using discrete-time feedback control," 5th International Conference on Control, Decision and Information Technologies, Thessaloniki, Greece, April 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoDIT.2018.8394784

11. H. Jafarnejadsani, H. Lee, N. Hovakimyan, and P. G. Voulgaris, "Dual-rate L1 adaptive controller for cyber-physical sampled-data systems," IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Melbourne, Australia, December 2017.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CDC.2017.8264602

12. H. Jafarnejadsani, H. Lee, and N. Hovakimyan, "An L1 adaptive control design for output-feedback sampled-data systems,” American Control Conference, pp. 5744–5749, May 2017.
https://doi.org/10.23919/ACC.2017.7963850

13. D. Sun, X. Li, H. Jafarnejadsani, and N. Hovakimyan, "A Flight Envelope Protection Method Based on Potential Functions," AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Grapevine, TX, 2017.
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2017-1024

14. H. Jafarnejadsani, H. Lee, and N. Hovakimyan, "Convex multi-objective filter optimization for L1 adaptive output-feedback control," AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, San Diego, CA, 2016.
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2016-1375

15. H. Jafarnejadsani, and N. Hovakimyan, "Optimal filter design for a discrete-time formulation of L1adaptive control", AIAA InfoTech @ Aerospace Conference, Kissimmee, FL, 2015.
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2015-0119

16. H. Jafarnejadsani, J. Pieper, "l1-Optimal Control of a Linear Parameter-Varying Model of a Wind Turbine in the Transition Region," Proceedings of the 24th Canadian Congress of Applied Mechanics (CANCAM), Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 2013.

17. H. Jafarnejadsani, J. Pieper, and J. Ehlers, "Adaptive control of a variable-speed variable-pitch wind turbine using RBF neural network," IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference, London, Ontario, Canada, 2012.
https://doi.org/10.1109/EPEC.2012.6474954


JOURNAL ARTICLE

1. H. -J. Yoon, H. Jafarnejadsani and P. Voulgaris, "Learning When to Use Adaptive Adversarial Image Perturbations Against Autonomous Vehicles," IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 8, no. 7, pp. 4179-4186, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3280813

2. H. J. Yoon, R. Holmes, H. Jafarnejadsani, P. Voulgaris. "Real-time Adversarial Image Perturbations for Autonomous Vehicles using Reinforcement Learning," ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems (submitted).

3. D. Sun, H. Jafarnejadsani, and N. Hovakimyan. "Design of Command Limiting Control Law using Exponential Potential Functions," Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 441-448, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.2514/1.G004972

4. D. Sun, H. Jafarnejadsani, and N. Hovakimyan. "Command Limiting for Aerial Vehicles With Rate Control Augmentation Systems," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 1702-1712, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TAES.2021.3050674

5. Y. Mao, H. Jafarnejadsani, P. Zhao, E. Akyol, and N. Hovakimyan, "Novel Stealthy Attack and Defense Strategies for Networked Control Systems“, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 65, no. 9, pp. 3847-3862, Sept. 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2020.2997363

6. H. Jafarnejadsani, N. Wan, N. Hovakimyan, and P. G. Voulgaris, "A multi-level sampled-data approach for resilient navigation and control of autonomous systems," International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, vol. 30, pp. 1071– 1097, Feb. 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1002/rnc.4814

7. H. Jafarnejadsani, H. Lee, and N. Hovakimyan, "L1 adaptive sampled-data control for uncertain multi-input multi-output systems," Automatica, vol. 103, pp. 346-353, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.automatica.2019.01.007

8. H. Jafarnejadsani, D. Sun, H. Lee, and N. Hovakimyan, "Optimized L1 adaptive controller for trajectory tracking of an indoor quadrotor," Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, pp. 1415-1427, 2017.
https://doi.org/10.2514/1.G000566

9. H. Jafarnejadsani, J. Pieper, "Gain-scheduled l1-optimal control of variable-speed variable-pitch wind turbines," IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol.23, no.1, 372-379, 2015.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCST.2014.2320675

10. H. Jafarnejadsani, J. Pieper, and J. Ehlers, "Adaptive control of a variable-speed variable-pitch wind turbine using radial-basis function neural network," IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol.21, no. 6, 2264-2272, 2013.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCST.2012.2237518

Courses

​​​​​​​​​​​​ME 225 Dynamics
ME 401 Special Problem in ME
ME 470 Mechanical Engineering Systems Lab
ME 621 Introduction to Modern Control Engineering
ME 800 Special Problems in Mechanical Engineering (ME)
ME 960 Research in Mechanical Engineering