Purnanand Elango
- Email:
-
Position:
Research / Technical Staff
Research Scientist -
Education:
Ph.D., University of Washington, 2024 -
Research Areas:
External Links:
Purnanand's Quick Links
-
Biography
Purnanand's research interest is in optimization algorithms for trajectory generation, sensing, and feedback control, with applications to space vehicles and robotic platforms. His doctoral research centered on developing trajectory optimization algorithms that ensure resilience, real-time capability, and convergence guarantees. Purnanand holds a B.Tech and an M.Tech in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
-
Internships with Purnanand
-
CA0111: Internship - Nonconvex Trajectory Optimization
MERL is seeking a graduate student to develop an optimization-based framework for nonconvex trajectory generation with emphasis on continuous-time modeling/constraint satisfaction, convergence guarantees, and real-time performance. The framework will support hybrid dynamical systems, spatio-temporal logical specifications, multi-body systems, and contact-rich motion. The methods will be evaluated on real-world robotics applications based on locomotion, manipulation, and motion planning. The results of the internship are expected to be published in top-tier conferences and/or journal in robotics, control systems, and optimization.
The internship is expected to start in Spring or Summer 2025 with an expected duration of 3-6 months depending on the agreed scope and intermediate progress.
Required Specific Experience
- Current/Past enrollment in a Ph.D. program in Mechanical, Aerospace, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Applied Mathematics.
- 2+ years of research in at least some of: sequential convex programming, augmented Lagrangian, operator-splitting first-order optimization algorithms, contact-rich motion, multi-body systems, signal temporal logic specifications, direct shooting and collocation methods.
- Experience in design and simulation tools for robotics such as ROS, Mujoco, Gazebo, Isaac Lab.
- Strong programming skills in Python and/or C/C++.
-
CA0117: Internship - Feedforward-Feedback Co-Design
MERL is seeking a graduate student to develop a scalable optimization-based framework for feedforward-feedback co-design for nonlinear dynamical systems subject to path constraints. The framework will 1) support modeling and operational uncertainties, and 2) guarantee static and dynamic feasibility in closed-loop. The solution approach will leverage the state-of-the-art in sequential convex programming, contraction analysis, and first-order methods for semidefinite programming. The methods will be evaluated on high-dimensional motion planning problems in robotics. The results of the internship are expected to be published in top-tier conferences and/or journal in robotics, control systems, and optimization.
The internship is expected to start in Spring or Summer 2025 with an expected duration of 3-6 months depending on the agreed scope and intermediate progress.
Required Specific Experience
- Current/Past enrollment in a Ph.D. program in Mechanical, Aerospace, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Applied Mathematics.
- 2+ years of research in at least some of: first-order algorithms for SDPs, contraction analysis, nonconvex trajectory optimization.
- Strong programming skills in Python and/or C/C++.
-
-
MERL Publications
- , "High-Fidelity Simulation of Horizon-Based Optical Navigation with Open-Source Software", International Astronautical Congress (IAC), October 2023, pp. IAC-23,C1,5,9,x78805.BibTeX TR2023-128 PDF
- @inproceedings{Shimane2023oct,
- author = {Shimane, Yuri and Miraldo, Pedro and Berntorp, Karl and Greiff, Marcus and Elango, Purnanand and Weiss, Avishai},
- title = {High-Fidelity Simulation of Horizon-Based Optical Navigation with Open-Source Software},
- booktitle = {International Astronautical Congress (IAC)},
- year = 2023,
- pages = {IAC--23,C1,5,9,x78805},
- month = oct,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-128}
- }
- , "DEEP REINFORCEMENT LEARNING FOR STATION KEEPING ON NEAR RECTILINEAR HALO ORBITS", AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, August 2023.BibTeX TR2023-098 PDF
- @inproceedings{Suda2023aug,
- author = {Suda, Takumi and Shimane, Yuri and Elango, Purnanand and Weiss, Avishai},
- title = {DEEP REINFORCEMENT LEARNING FOR STATION KEEPING ON NEAR RECTILINEAR HALO ORBITS},
- booktitle = {AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference},
- year = 2023,
- month = aug,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-098}
- }
- , "Sequential linearization-based station keeping with optical navigation for NRHO", AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, September 2022.BibTeX TR2022-114 PDF
- @inproceedings{Elango2022sep,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Di Cairano, Stefano and Berntorp, Karl and Weiss, Avishai},
- title = {Sequential linearization-based station keeping with optical navigation for NRHO},
- booktitle = {AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference},
- year = 2022,
- month = sep,
- issn = {-},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-114}
- }
- , "Local Eigenmotion Control for Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits", American Control Conference (ACC), DOI: 10.23919/ACC53348.2022.9867672, June 2022, pp. 1822-1827.BibTeX TR2022-060 PDF
- @inproceedings{Elango2022jun,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Di Cairano, Stefano and Kalabic, Uros and Weiss, Avishai},
- title = {Local Eigenmotion Control for Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits},
- booktitle = {American Control Conference (ACC)},
- year = 2022,
- pages = {1822--1827},
- month = jun,
- doi = {10.23919/ACC53348.2022.9867672},
- issn = {2378-5861},
- isbn = {978-1-6654-5196-3},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-060}
- }
- , "High-Fidelity Simulation of Horizon-Based Optical Navigation with Open-Source Software", International Astronautical Congress (IAC), October 2023, pp. IAC-23,C1,5,9,x78805.
-
Other Publications
- , "Fast Monte Carlo Analysis For 6-DoF Powered-Descent Guidance via GPU-Accelerated Sequential Convex Programming", AIAA SciTech 2024 Forum, 2024, pp. 1762.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{chari2024fast,
- author = {Chari, Govind M and Kamath, Abhinav G and Elango, Purnanand and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Fast Monte Carlo Analysis For 6-DoF Powered-Descent Guidance via GPU-Accelerated Sequential Convex Programming},
- booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2024 Forum},
- year = 2024,
- pages = 1762
- }
- , "Successive Convexification for Trajectory Optimization with Continuous-Time Constraint Satisfaction", arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.16826, 2024.BibTeX
- @Article{elango2024successive,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Luo, Dayou and Kamath, Abhinav G. and Uzun, Samet and Kim, Taewan and A{\c{c}}{\i}kme{\c{s}}e, Beh{\c{c}}et},
- title = {Successive Convexification for Trajectory Optimization with Continuous-Time Constraint Satisfaction},
- journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.16826},
- year = 2024
- }
- , "Joint Synthesis of Trajectory and Controlled Invariant Funnel for Discrete-time Systems with Locally Lipschitz Nonlinearities", International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, Vol. 34, No. 6, pp. 4157-4176, 2024.BibTeX
- @Article{kim2024joint,
- author = {Kim, Taewan and Elango, Purnanand and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Joint Synthesis of Trajectory and Controlled Invariant Funnel for Discrete-time Systems with Locally Lipschitz Nonlinearities},
- journal = {International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control},
- year = 2024,
- volume = 34,
- number = 6,
- pages = {4157--4176},
- publisher = {Wiley}
- }
- , "Remarks on Successive Convexification: A Superlinearly Convergent Algorithm for Non-convex Optimal Control Problems""", arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.00733, 2024.BibTeX
- @Article{luo2024remarks,
- author = {Luo, Dayou and Elango, Purnanand and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Remarks on Successive Convexification: A Superlinearly Convergent Algorithm for Non-convex Optimal Control Problems""},
- journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.00733},
- year = 2024
- }
- , "Autorotation-Based Descent with Trajectory Optimization", Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 61, No. 1, pp. 25-42, 2024.BibTeX
- @Article{patnala2024autorotation,
- author = {Patnala, Susmitha and Elango, Purnanand and Mohan, Ranjith and Shamrao},
- title = {Autorotation-Based Descent with Trajectory Optimization},
- journal = {Journal of Aircraft},
- year = 2024,
- volume = 61,
- number = 1,
- pages = {25--42},
- publisher = {American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics}
- }
- , "Optimization with Temporal and Logical Specifications via Generalized Mean-based Smooth Robustness Measures", arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.10996, 2024.BibTeX
- @Article{uzun2024optimization,
- author = {Uzun, Samet and Elango, Purnanand and Garoche, Pierre-Loic and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Optimization with Temporal and Logical Specifications via Generalized Mean-based Smooth Robustness Measures},
- journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.10996},
- year = 2024
- }
- , "Successive Convexification for Nonlinear Model Predictive Control with Continuous-Time Constraint Satisfaction", arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.00061, 2024.BibTeX
- @Article{uzun2024successive,
- author = {Uzun, Samet and Elango, Purnanand and Kamath, Abhinav G and Kim, Taewan and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Successive Convexification for Nonlinear Model Predictive Control with Continuous-Time Constraint Satisfaction},
- journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.00061},
- year = 2024
- }
- , "Proportional Integral Projected Gradient Method for Real-Time Optimal Control", SIAM Conference on Optimization (OP23), 2023, pp. 102.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{elango2023proportional,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Kamath, Abhinav and Yu, Yue and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Proportional Integral Projected Gradient Method for Real-Time Optimal Control},
- booktitle = {SIAM Conference on Optimization (OP23)},
- year = 2023,
- number = {MS111},
- pages = 102,
- organization = {https://www.siam.org/Portals/0/Conferences/OP/OP23\_ABSTRACTS.pdf}
- }
- , "Customized Real-Time First-Order Methods for Onboard Dual Quaternion-based 6-DoF Powered-Descent Guidance", AIAA SciTech 2023 Forum, 2023, pp. 2003.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{kamath2023customized,
- author = {Kamath, Abhinav G and Elango, Purnanand and Mceowen, Skye and Yu, Yue and Carson, John M and Mesbahi, Mehran and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Customized Real-Time First-Order Methods for Onboard Dual Quaternion-based 6-DoF Powered-Descent Guidance},
- booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2023 Forum},
- year = 2023,
- pages = 2003
- }
- , "Real-Time Sequential Conic Optimization for Multi-Phase Rocket Landing Guidance", IFAC-PapersOnLine, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 3118-3125, 2023.BibTeX
- @Article{kamath2023real,
- author = {Kamath, Abhinav G and Elango, Purnanand and Yu, Yue and Mceowen, Skye and Chari, Govind M and Carson III, John M and A{\c{c}}{\i}kme{\c{s}}e, Beh{\c{c}}et},
- title = {Real-Time Sequential Conic Optimization for Multi-Phase Rocket Landing Guidance},
- journal = {IFAC-PapersOnLine},
- year = 2023,
- volume = 56,
- number = 2,
- pages = {3118--3125},
- publisher = {Elsevier}
- }
- , "Optimization-based Constrained Funnel Synthesis for Systems with Lipschitz Nonlinearities via Numerical Optimal Control", IEEE Control Systems Letters, Vol. 7, pp. 2875-2880, 2023.BibTeX
- @Article{kim2023optimization,
- author = {Kim, Taewan and Elango, Purnanand and Reynolds, Taylor P and A{\c{c}}{\i}kme{\c{s}}e, Beh{\c{c}}et and Mesbahi, Mehran},
- title = {Optimization-based Constrained Funnel Synthesis for Systems with Lipschitz Nonlinearities via Numerical Optimal Control},
- journal = {IEEE Control Systems Letters},
- year = 2023,
- volume = 7,
- pages = {2875--2880},
- publisher = {IEEE}
- }
- , "High-Accuracy 3-DoF Hypersonic Reentry Guidance via Sequential Convex Programming", AIAA SciTech 2023 Forum, 2023, pp. 0300.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{mceowen2023high,
- author = {Mceowen, Skye and Kamath, Abhinav G and Elango, Purnanand and Kim, Taewan and Buckner, Sam and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {High-Accuracy 3-DoF Hypersonic Reentry Guidance via Sequential Convex Programming},
- booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2023 Forum},
- year = 2023,
- pages = 0300
- }
- , "A Customized First-Order Solver for Real-Time Powered-Descent Guidance", AIAA SciTech 2022 Forum, 2022.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{elango2022customized,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Kamath, Abhinav G. and Yu, Yue and Acikmese, Behcet and Mesbahi, Mehran and Carson, John M},
- title = {A Customized First-Order Solver for Real-Time Powered-Descent Guidance},
- booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2022 Forum},
- year = 2022,
- organization = {American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics}
- }
- , "Deferring Decision in Multi-target Trajectory Optimization", AIAA SciTech 2022 Forum, 2022, pp. 1583.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{elango2022deferring,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Sarsilmaz, Selahattin Burak and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Deferring Decision in Multi-target Trajectory Optimization},
- booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2022 Forum},
- year = 2022,
- pages = 1583
- }
- , "Guided Policy Search using Sequential Convex Programming for Initialization of Trajectory Optimization Algorithms", 2022 American Control Conference (ACC), 2022, pp. 3572-3578.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{kim2022guided,
- author = {Kim, Taewan and Elango, Purnanand and Malyuta, Danylo and Acikmese, Behcet},
- title = {Guided Policy Search using Sequential Convex Programming for Initialization of Trajectory Optimization Algorithms},
- booktitle = {2022 American Control Conference (ACC)},
- year = 2022,
- pages = {3572--3578}
- }
- , "Extrapolated Proportional-Integral Projected Gradient Method for Conic Optimization", IEEE Control Systems Letters, Vol. 7, pp. 73-78, 2022.BibTeX
- @Article{yu2022extrapolated,
- author = {Yu, Yue and Elango, Purnanand and A{\c{c}}{\i}kme{\c{s}}e, Beh{\c{c}}et and Topcu, Ufuk},
- title = {Extrapolated Proportional-Integral Projected Gradient Method for Conic Optimization},
- journal = {IEEE Control Systems Letters},
- year = 2022,
- volume = 7,
- pages = {73--78},
- publisher = {IEEE}
- }
- , "Proportional--integral projected gradient method for conic optimization", Automatica, Vol. 142, pp. 110359, 2022.BibTeX
- @Article{yu2022proportional,
- author = {Yu, Yue and Elango, Purnanand and Topcu, Ufuk and A{\c{c}}{\i}kme{\c{s}}e, Beh{\c{c}}et},
- title = {Proportional--integral projected gradient method for conic optimization},
- journal = {Automatica},
- year = 2022,
- volume = 142,
- pages = 110359,
- publisher = {Pergamon}
- }
- , "Advances in trajectory optimization for space vehicle control", Annual Reviews in Control, Vol. 52, pp. 282-315, 2021.BibTeX
- @Article{malyuta2021advances,
- author = {Malyuta, Danylo and Yu, Yue and Elango, Purnanand and A{\c{c}}{\i}kme{\c{s}}e, Beh{\c{c}}et},
- title = {Advances in trajectory optimization for space vehicle control},
- journal = {Annual Reviews in Control},
- year = 2021,
- volume = 52,
- pages = {282--315},
- publisher = {Pergamon}
- }
- , "Fourier Pseudospectral Method for Trajectory Optimization with Stability Requirements", Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 43, No. 11, pp. 2073-2090, 2020.BibTeX
- @Article{laad2020fourier,
- author = {Laad, Dhruv and Elango, Purnanand and Mohan, Ranjith},
- title = {Fourier Pseudospectral Method for Trajectory Optimization with Stability Requirements},
- journal = {Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics},
- year = 2020,
- volume = 43,
- number = 11,
- pages = {2073--2090},
- publisher = {American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics}
- }
- , "Proportional-integral projected gradient method for model predictive control", IEEE Control Systems Letters, Vol. 5, No. 6, pp. 2174-2179, 2020.BibTeX
- @Article{yu2020proportional,
- author = {Yu, Yue and Elango, Purnanand and A{\c{c}}{\i}kme{\c{s}}e, Beh{\c{c}}et},
- title = {Proportional-integral projected gradient method for model predictive control},
- journal = {IEEE Control Systems Letters},
- year = 2020,
- volume = 5,
- number = 6,
- pages = {2174--2179},
- publisher = {IEEE}
- }
- , "Periodic Flight of Rotorcraft within Thermal Columns", AIAA SciTech 2019 Forum, 2019.BibTeX
- @Inproceedings{elango2019periodic,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Mohan, Ranjith},
- title = {Periodic Flight of Rotorcraft within Thermal Columns},
- booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2019 Forum},
- year = 2019,
- organization = {American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics}
- }
- , "Trajectory optimisation of six degree of freedom aircraft using differential flatness", The Aeronautical Journal, Vol. 122, No. 1257, pp. 1788-1810, 2018.BibTeX
- @Article{elango2018trajectory,
- author = {Elango, Purnanand and Mohan, Ranjith},
- title = {Trajectory optimisation of six degree of freedom aircraft using differential flatness},
- journal = {The Aeronautical Journal},
- year = 2018,
- volume = 122,
- number = 1257,
- pages = {1788--1810},
- publisher = {Cambridge University Press}
- }
- , "Fast Monte Carlo Analysis For 6-DoF Powered-Descent Guidance via GPU-Accelerated Sequential Convex Programming", AIAA SciTech 2024 Forum, 2024, pp. 1762.