Brad Denby
Assistant Professor
Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA
Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA
I am an assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Aerospace and Ocean Engineering Department. I completed my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Before that, I worked as a research engineer at the Autonomy and Navigation Technology (ANT) Center in the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). During that time, I completed my MS in computer engineering. As an undergraduate, I studied physics, mathematics, and computer science.
While embedded devices get smart, energy systems stay dumb. Embedded smart energy supports devices doing more for longer through physics-based energy scheduling, multi-level energy caches, and energy management units.
Machine learning isn't just for social media. Cyber-physical machine learning brings ML into the real world with neural network design for tiny features, trajectory control with machine vision, and artificial intelligence in the kill chain.
Nanosatellite constellations, drone swarms, and submersible squadrons. Multi-agent systems can do things that individual devices can't, but performance depends on sensor data quality, communication, computation, and power.
Many university-scale satellites fly new, one-of-a-kind sensors. Starbelt satellites use flight-proven sensors and justify missions by adding data-processing hardware.
Micro UAVs expend significant power on flight, computation, and communication. Balance among these factors determine end-to-end performance.
Submersibles face challenges in sensor data quality, communication, and energy availability. Coordination among submersibles creates new capabilities.