Research Areas | Laurentburlion

Selected research topics

Modeling and control of slosh dynamics

A.K. Shakya, M. Fogel, G. Pillai, L. Burlion, and S. Chakrabarty, “Spill-Free Liquid Container Handling using Deep Reinforcement Learning Agents in Feedback Control,” submitted.
G. Magnani, J-M. Biannic, M. Cassaro, E. Evain, and L. Burlion, “Slosh attenuation via Reference Governor-based adaptive control for space operations under actuators constraints,” submitted.
M. Fogel, and L. Burlion, “SPICEsat: Nanosatellite Design Considerations for a Mission to Explore the Propellant Sloshing Problem,” AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, to appear.
M. Fogel, S. Terracina, and L. Burlion, “The Rutgers SPICESat Mission: An Educational Case Study,” in Proc. of the 2024 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1-11, Big Sky, MT, USA, 2024.
M. Fogel, M. Jadeja, and L. Burlion, “SPICEsat: A Nanosatellite Mission to Explore the Propellant Sloshing Problem,” in Proc. of the AIAA SciTech Forum, 2023.
C. Zhao, M. Fogel, and L. Burlion, “Control of propellant slosh dynamics in observation spacecraft using Model Free Control and pressure sensors,” in Proc. of IEEE CCTA conference, Trieste, pp. 191-196, 2022.
J.-M. Biannic, A. Bourdelle, H. Evain, S. Moreno and L. Burlion, "On robust LPV-based observation of fuel slosh dynamics for attitude control design”, in Proc. of the 3rd IFAC Workshop on Linear Parameter Varying Systems, (LPVS 2019), vol.52(28), pp. 170-175, 2019.
A. Bourdelle, J-M. Biannic, H. Evain, C. Pittet, S. Moreno, and L. Burlion, "Modeling and control of propellant slosh dynamics in observation spacecraft", in Proc. of the 8th European Conference for Aeronautics and Space Sciences, (EUCASS 2019), Madrid, Spain, (Best Student Paper Award in Flight Dynamics, GNC, and Avionics), 2019.

Analysis and control of "highly" nonlinear systems

B. Lai, T. Cunis, and L. Burlion, "Nonlinear Trajectory Based Region of Attraction Estimation for Aircraft Dynamics Analysis", in Proc. of AIAA SciTech 2021.
T. Cunis, D. Liao-MacPherson, I. Kolmanovsky, and L. Burlion, " Model-Predictive Spiral and Spin Upset Recovery Control for the Generic Transport Model Simulation”, in Proc. of IEEE CCTA 2020.
T. Cunis, J-P. Condomines and L. Burlion, "Sum-of-squares flight control synthesis for deep stall recovery", AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 43(8), pp.1498-1511, 2020.
T. Cunis, J-P. Condomines and L. Burlion, "Local stability analysis for large polynomial spline systems", Automatica, vol.113, 2020.
T. Cunis, J-P. Condomines, L. Burlion, and A. la Cour-Harbo, "Dynamic stability analysis of aircraft flight in deep-stall", AIAA Journal of Aircraft, vol. 57(1), pp. 143-155, 2020.
T. Cunis, L. Burlion, and J-P. Condomines, "On Piece-wise Polynomial Modeling for Control and Analysis of Aircraft Dynamics beyond Stall", AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol.42(4), pp. 949-957, 2019.

Control of systems with state constraints or input saturation

R. Schieni, M. Malisoff, and L. Burlion, “Theory for Speeding Up Reference Governors using Interval Contractors,” submitted.
R. Schieni, M. Modasiya, M. Malisoff, and L. Burlion, “Quadrotor Flight Envelope Protection with Trajectory and Yaw Tracking”, AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 47(12), pp. 2601-2614, 2024.
L. Burlion, R. Schieni, and I. Kolmanovsky, “A Reference Governor for linear systems with polynomial constraints,” Automatica, vol.142, 2022.
L. Burlion, J-M. Biannic, and T. Ahmed-Ali, "Attitude tracking of a flexible spacecraft under angular velocity constraints", International Journal of Control, vol. 92(7), pp. 1524-1540, 2019.
L. Burlion, M. Nicotra, and I. Kolmanovsky, "A fast reference governor for the constrained control of linear discrete-time systems with parametric uncertainties", in Proc. of the 57th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, (CDC 2018), pp. 6289-6294, 2018.
E. Chambon, L. Burlion, and P. Apkarian, "Time-response shaping using Output to Input Saturation Transformation", International Journal of Control, vol. 91(3), pp.534-553, 2018.
E. Chambon, L. Burlion, and P. Apkarian, "Robust output interval constraint using O/I saturation transformation with application to uncertain linear launch vehicle ", in Proc. of the European Control Conference, ECC 2015, pp. 1796-1801, 2015.
L. Burlion and H. de Plinval, "Keeping a Ground Point in the Camera Field of View of a Landing UAV", in Proc. of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp.5763-5768, 2013.
J-M. Biannic, L. Burlion, S. Tarbouriech, and G. Garcia, "On dynamic inversion with rate limitations", American Control Conference, Montreal, pp. 191-196, June 2012.
L. Burlion, "A new Saturation function to convert an output constraint into an input constraint", in Proc. of the 20th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, pp.1217-1222, 2012.

Vision-based landing

L. Burlion, V. Gibert, M. Malisoff and F. Mazenc, “Controls for a nonlinear system arising in vision‐based landing of airliners,” International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, vol 31(4), pp.1227-1244, 2021.
L. Burlion, M. Malisoff, and F. Mazenc, "Stabilization for a chain of saturating integrators arising in the visual landing of aircraft with sampling", Systems & Control Letters, vol. 135, 2020.
L. Burlion, L. Zaccarian, H. de Plinval, and S. Tarbouriech, "Discontinuous model recovery anti-windup for image-based visual servoing", Automatica, vol.104, pp.41-47, 2019.
V. Gibert, F. Plestan, L. Burlion, J. Boada, and A. Chriette, "Visual estimation of deviations for the civil aircraft landing", Control Engineering Practice, vol.75, pp.17-25, 2018.
L. Burlion and H. de Plinval, "Vision-based anti-windup design with application to the landing of an airliner", in Proc of the 20th IFAC World Congress, Toulouse, France, 2017
G. Sabiron, T. Raharijaona, L. Burlion, E. Kervendal, E. Bornschlegl, and F. Ruffier,"Sub-optimal Lunar Landing GNC using Non-gimbaled Optic Flow Sensors", in IEEE Trans. on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 51( 4), pp.2525-2545, 2015.
V. Gibert, L. Burlion, A. Chriette, J. Boada, and F. Plestan, "New pose estimation scheme in perspective vision system during civil aircraft landings", in Proc of the 11th IFAC Symposium on Robot Control, SYROCO 2015, vol.48(19), pp.238-243, 2015
G. Sabiron, L. Burlion, G. Jonniaux, E. Kervendal, E. Bornschlegl, T. Raharijaona, and F. Ruffier, "Backup State Observer Based on Optic Flow Applied to Lunar Landing", in Proc. of the 2014 international conference on Intelligent RObot and Systems, IROS, pp. 2325-2332, 2014

Sampled data systems control and observation

T. Ahmed-Ali, E. Fridman, F. Giri, M. Kahelras, F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, and L. Burlion, "Observer design for a class of parabolic systems with large delays and sampled measurements," IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, vol.65(5), pp. 2200-2206, 2020.
T. Ahmed-Ali, F. Giri, M. Krstic, L. Burlion, and F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, "Adaptive Observers design in presence of heat PDE sensor," Automatica, vol.82, pp. 93-100, 2017.
T. Ahmed-Ali, E. Fridman, F. Giri, L. Burlion, and F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, "Using exponential time-varying gains for sampled-data stabilization and estimation", Automatica, vol.67, pp 244-251, 2016.
T. Folin, T. Ahmed-Ali, F. Giri, L. Burlion and F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, "Sampled-Data Adaptive Observer for a Class of State-Affine Output-Injection Nonlinear Systems", in IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, vol. 61(2), pp.462-467, 2016.
T. Ahmed-Ali, L. Burlion, F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, and C. Hann, "A sampled-data observer with time-varying gain for a class of nonlinear systems with sampled-measurements", in Proc. of the 53rd Conference on Decision and Control, Los Angeles, pp.316-321, 2014.
R. Postoyan, T. Ahmed-Ali, L. Burlion and F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue., "On the Lyapunov-based adaptive control redesign for a class of nonlinear sampled-data systems", Automatica, vol.44(8), pp 2099-2107, 2008.
L. Burlion, T. Ahmed-Ali, and F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, "On the stability of a class of nonlinear hybrid systems", Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Methods and Applications, vol.65(12), 2236-2247, 2006.
L. Burlion, T. Ahmed-Ali, and F. Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, "On the stabilization of sampled-data nonlinear systems by using backstepping on the higher order approximate models", International Journal of Control, vol.79(9), 1087-1095, 2006.

Overview

Burlion Research Group specializes in nonlinear control design for complex, uncertain controlled systems, particularly within the aerospace domain. Burlion has 15 years of experience working with both the aerospace industry and research institutions' leaders. Burlion has a strong track record in aerospace control systems, having worked on projects such as vision-based landing for Airbus, lunar lander control for ESA, and fluid sloshing control for the French Space Agency. He also worked on advanced controls for the prevention of, and the recovery from, aircraft excursions from nominal flight regimes.

At Rutgers, Burlion has established the first satellite integration ITAR-compliant facility on campus – the ‘Rutgers Satellite Laboratory’ His current research involves studying the tank fluid dynamics on spacecraft or launchers using various characterization methods to better understand low-gravity fluid sloshing and improve available simulation and control tools. He is the faculty advisor of “SPICESat,” the first Rutgers CubeSat mission funded by the Airforce (UNP NS-11 and NS-12) since 2021.

Burlion's expertise extends to drone technology, where he oversees the development and testing of flight control algorithms on both commercial and custom-built quadcopters. His group implements innovative nonlinear control laws to both improve the reliability and enlarge the flight envelope of autonomous quadcopters and airplanes. Besides, Burlion and his students are also working on advanced control methods for floating offshore wind turbines.

Our research is funded by the following sponsors: