Liang (Solomon) Sun
Contact Information
Journal Publications
- Sun, L., Castagno, J., Hedengren, J. D., and Beard, R. W., Parameter Estimation for Towed Cable Systems Using Moving Horizon Estimation, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Vol. 51, No. 2, April 2015. Preprint, Article
- Nichols, J. W., Sun, L., Beard, R. W., and McLain, T. W. "Aerial Rendezvous of Small Unmanned Aircraft Using a Passive Towed Cable System", Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 2013, accepted. Preprint
- Sun, L., Hedengren, J. D., and Beard, R. W., Optimal Trajectory Generation using Model Predictive Control for Aerially Towed Cable Systems, Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 37, Issue 2, pp. 525-539, 2014. Preprint Article
- Colton, M. B., Sun, L., Carlson, D. C., and Beard, R. W., "Multi-vehicle Dynamics and Control for Aerial Recovery of Micro Air Vehicles", Int. J. Vehicle Autonomous Systems, Vol. 9, 2011, pp. 78-107. PDF
Conference Proceedings
- Nichols, J. and Sun, L., "Autonomous Aerial Rendezvous of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems using A Towed Cable System", 43rd Annual Society of Flight Test Engineers Symposium, Fort Walton Beach, FL, USA, October 2012. PDF
- Sun, L. and Beard, R. W., "Towed-body Trajectory Tracking in Aerial Recovery of Micro Air Vehicle in the presence of Wind", American Control Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA, 2011, pp. 3209-3214. PDF
- Sun, L., Beard, R. W., and Colton, M. B., "Motion Planning and Control for Mothership-cable-drogue Systems in Aerial Recovery of Micro Air Vehicles", American Control Conference, Baltimore, MD, USA, 2010, pp. 2101-2106. PDF
- Sun, L. and Beard, R. W., "Towed Body Altitude Stabilization and States Estimation in Aerial Recovery of Micro Air Vehicles", AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Toronto, Ontario Canada, August 2010. PDF
- Sun, L., Beard, R. W., and Colton, M. B., McLain, T. W., “Dynamics and Control of Cable-drogue System in Aerial Recovery of Micro Air Vehicles Based on Gauss’s Principle.” St. Louis, MO, USA: American Control Conference, June 2009, pp. 4729–4734. PDF
Experience
- Academy Center for UAS Research, US Air Force Academy, CO, Apr 2013 - present
- USL Lab, UTSA San Antonio, TX, Apr 2013 - present
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
- Developed a nonlinear control strategy for systems with unmodifiable modules such as autopilot.
- Developed a decentralized consensus-based cooperative control strategy for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles.
- Wrote a white paper for “Aerial Launch and Recovery for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”.
- Writing white papers for “Virtual Target Tracking for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” and “Cooperative Localization and Tracking for Unmanned Aerial and Ground Vehicles”.
Lab Coordinator
- Directed lab and research meetings.
- Instructed a tutorial of 3D animation simulation in MATLAB.
- Interviewed Master and Ph.D. student candidates.
- MAGICC Lab, BYU, Provo, UT, Sep 2007 -- Apr 2013
Research Assistant and Team Leader
- Led the project of “Autonomous Aerial Recovery of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” for Phase I and II.
- Dedicated to dynamic modeling, motion planning and control, simulation and flight testing.
- Developed 3D animation simulation using Simulink/MATLAB and OpenGL/C++.
- Outperformed other research teams (M.I.T. and Georgia Tech) and achieved the contract for phase II project.
- Implemented 60+ flights trails totaling 100+ hours of flight time.
- Conducted the team meetings biweekly, wrote proposals and reports and presented to the clients.
- Published two journal papers and presented and published six conference papers.
Teaching Assistant (Fall 2009 & Fall 2012)
- Delivered lectures for professors in the senior class, Feedback control of Dynamic Systems (60 students).
- Supervised lab assignments using a three degree-of-freedom helicopter equipped with encoders, IMU and camera.
- Answered questions, graded exams and homework, and prepared course materials.
- Received high evaluation in the feedback survey of the TA work.
- Technical Support Engineer, Beijing Teamsun Technology Co., LTD, Beijing, China, May 2007 – Aug 2007
- Professional trained for UNIX system and Solaris server operation.
- Solved client’s problem on-site by trouble shooting frozen servers and replacing malfunctioned components.
- Research Assistant, Automation Academy, Beihang University, Beijing, China, Sep 2004 – May 2007
- Developed hardware-in-the-loop real-time flight control simulation system using four computers and rudder machines connecting via the optical fiber and the reflective memory cards.
- Developed autonomous identification of the position of the runway using image processing during self-landing.
Education
- PHD, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Brigham Young University (BYU) Dec 2012
- President of Chinese Student and Scholar Association 2009-2010 at BYU
- Conducted events, e.g., “Chinese Spring Festival Celebration” (500 ptcs.), “Moon Festival Celebration” (200 ptcs.)
- Cooperatively conducted events, e.g., “Utah China 60th Anniversary Celebration” (600 ptcs.), and “BYU World Festival Expo”.
- M.S. and B.S. Electrical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University (BUAA), China, Apr 2007
- “Best Graduates” reward ( top 12 in 360 students)
- Scholarship and awards for “Triple-A” student (2001-2003)
- Class president (360 students)
