• Awards
  • Work experience

Awards

Funding

  • J. Hole and A. L'Afflittoli> UAV-Borne Radar Characterization of Rock Fall Hazards,

    July 2023 -- June 2024

    Funding agency: Center to Advance the Science of Exploration to Reclamation in Mining. Cumulative: $145,868; Personal share: $36,015; 7% IDC

  • A. L'Afflitto and W. Sun
  • Robust Adaptive Control and Vision-Based Navigation System Design for Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles,

    February 2023 -- February 2026

    Funding agency: AvMC. Cumulative: $624,832; Personal share: $329,180

  • A. L'Afflitto and E. Feuerbacher
  • A Study on Human-Robot Interaction Design based on a Dog-Caregiver Relation,

    October 2023 -- June 2024

    Funding agency: Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science. Cumulative: $9,690

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • Constraint-Aware Fast Path Planning and Control for UAM Systems in Urban Environments,

    January 2023 -- December 2024

    Funding agency: Center for Autonomous Air Mobility Sensing (NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers). Cumulative: $120,000; 7% IDC

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • Southeast Control Conference 2021: A Networking and Brainstorming Opportunity for the Regional DCSD Community,

    August 2021 -- December 2021

    Funding agency: NSF. Cumulative: $16,018

  • A. L'Afflitto and C. Sandu
  • TA1: Physics-Based Robust, Adaptive, and Scalable Control Algorithms for Autonomous Ground Vehicles Operating at High-Speed in Adversarial Environments,

    January 2021 -- December 2023

    Funding agency: U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center. Cumulative: $394,569; Personal share: $197,285

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • Robust Adaptive Control Algorithms for Vertical Take-Off and Landing Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,

    January 2021 -- April 2023

    Funding agency: U.S. Department of the Navy. Cumulative: $179,996

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • Autonomous Ground Vehicles for Safe Industrial Operations,

    September -- December 2020

    Funding agency: Northrop Grumman. Cumulative: $10,000

    Mentoring Program for New Faculty Members,

    December 2019

    Funding agency: Virginia Tech (Internal grant). Cumulative: $1,500

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • Design of a guidance and control system for an unconventional aircraft,

    August 2019 -- July 2020

    Funding agency: Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Cumulative: $44,000

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • Securing Autonomous Robotic Systems from Cyber-Attacks,

    September -- December 2019

    Funding agency: Northrop Grumman. Cumulative: $10,000

  • A. L'Afflitto and D. K. Walters
  • Robust Adaptive Controls for Shipboard Landing of Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,

    June 2019 -- May 2021

    Funding agency: ONR. Cumulative: $401,484; Personal share: $221,016

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • DARPA-RA-17-01-YFA-FP-090, TA24 - A bio-inspired approach to fly undetected in cluttered environments,

    July 2018 -- June 2021

    Funding agency: DARPA Young Faculty Award. Cumulative: $498,513

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • T3C1S4C -- UAS Control System -- Robotics CTA 2017-18 Biennial Program Plan,

    May 2018 -- December 2020

    Funding agency: ARL through Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance. Cumulative: $185,343

  • A. L'Afflitto and Z. Siddique
  • Collaborative Research: Unmanned Aerial Systems and Specialized Workforce Development to Support Oklahoman Agriculture and Industry,

    July 2017 -- July 2020

    Funding agency: NSF ATE Program. Cumulative: $408,804; Personal share: $224,842

    This proposal was in collaboration with Rose State College, whose PIs submitted the proposal no. 1700647 and received a $305,150 award.

  • A. L'Afflitto
  • Summer Research Experience: Programming UAS for Improved Weather Forecasts,

    May -- August 2017

    Funding Agency: NSF Oklahoma EPSCoR. Cumulative: $5,000

  • S. Koch, P. Chilson, E. Rasmussen, R. Huck, A. L'Afflitto, and J. Salazar-Cerreno
  • Three-Dimensional Profiling of the Severe-Weather Environment, April 2016 -- August 2018

    Funding agency: NOAA. Cumulative: $117,980; Personal share: $41,797 + fringe

Personal

  • College of Engineering at Virginia Tech - 2023-2024 - Fellow
  • IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems - 2021 - Outstanding contributions as an Associate Editor
  • Elsevier Control Engineering Practice - 2020 - Top 15 reviewer
  • The University of Oklahoma - 2018 - Exceptional Achievement in Research Award
  • IET Control Theory and Applications - 2015 - Recognized by Professor J. Lam as top 5% most active and outstanding reviewer out of over 1000
  • AIAA Guidance Navigation and Control Graduate Student Award - 2015 - Waived for having gained Ph.D. degree
  • Maria Rea D'Onofrio Fellowship - Fall 2011 - Spring 2015
  • Wolfe International Fellowship - Summer 2012
  • Pratt Fellowship - January 2009

Industrial experience

Air Force Research Lab, Summer Facutly Fellow, Summer, 2021
AFRL

Collaboration on the design of optimization-based guidance systems for autonomous aerial systems.


Office of Naval Research, Summer Facutly Fellow, Summer, 2020
ONR

Collaboration on the design of nonlinear robust control algorithms for small, autonomous vertial take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicles.


Army Research Lab, Summer Facutly Fellow, Summer, 2017-2019
ARL

Collaboration on the design, implementation, and testing of nonlinear robust controls for multi-rotor aircraft and aerial manipulators.


Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Mathematician, July - August, 2013
FermiLab

Analysis of the instabilities of electron beams and design of optimal state-feedback control laws that guarantee minimization of the beam emittance and convergence of the beams to an assigned manifold.


German Aerospace Agency (DLR), Systems and operations engineer, January, 2009 - May, 2008
DLR & ESA

Payload and operations coordinator of EXPOSE-E, a payload installed in February 2008 outside the European module Columbus of the ISS. This payload was aimed at studying of the effects of solar radiations on biological samples. Main tasks concerned defining procedures for utilizing EXPOSE-E, supporting the payload utilization in orbit, coordinating the real-time science objectives of the payload facility, issuing commands to the payload, and coordinating the work of the product developer, the primary investigators, and the other USOCs involved.


Italian Space Agency (ASI), Systems engineer, January - June, 2006
ASI

I contributed to the design in phase 0 of a satellite for Earth observation according to the concurrent design methodology and selected its most adequate orbit. This satellite was designed to fly in formation with a spacecraft of the Argentinian Space Agency (CONAE) to acquire interferometric images using an L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). I also contributed to design the structure of the database supporting the concurrent engineering facility at ASI.


Co.Ro.S.T.A. (Consortium of Research of Advanced Remote Sensing Systems) - Alenia Spazio, Systems engineer, January - July, 2004
Co.Ri.S.T.A.

My tasks concerned the design of a vision system (stereo cameras and laser scanner) for a satellite of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), which is aimed at autonomous robotic on orbit rendezvous, docking, and servicing. The main contractor for this project was ALENIA Spazio.