Education:

• PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Drexel University Philadelphia, 2015
• MSc in Mechanical Engineering, University of Central Florida Orlando, 2013
• MSc in Applied Mechanics, Shiraz University Shiraz Iran, 2010
• BSc in Mechanical Engineering, Shiraz University Shiraz Iran, 2006

Research Interests: ^top

• Dynamics and Control
• Autonomous Systems
• Large-Scale Robotics
• Sensor Fusion and State Estimation
• Aerial Robotics
• Applied Mathematics
• Applied Mechanics

Biography: ^top

Hossein Rastgoftar is currently an assistant professor at Villanova University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. He was an Assistant Research Scientist in the Aerospace Engineering Department from 2017 to 2020. Prior to that he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan from 2015 to 2017. Dr. Rastgoftar received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University in 2015. Hossein has two MS degrees (one in Mechanical Systems and the other in Solid Mechanics) and a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering-Thermo-Fluids

Hossein has worked on decision making for long-duration environmental search missions over his postdoctoral career at Umich. He applied the Markov Decision Process (MDP) to a long-duration autonomy project. Furthermore, he investigated autonomous off-road driving and proposed a new data-driven approach for vehicle motion planning and control. For his PhD research, he applied continuum deformation approach for large-scale robotics motion planning. This new approach considers a multi-robot system as particles in a continuum, deforming in a three dimensional motion space. Hossein is the sole author of the book “Continuum Deformation of Multi-Agent System” published by Springer-Birkhauser (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319415932). Hossein is currently working  on a cooperative aerial payload transport mission by autonomous Multi-UAV (Unmanned Aerial System) System (MUS) as an application for the MUS continuum deformation.

Positions Held at UM

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan Ann Arbor (2020-Present)

Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan Ann Arbor (2017-2020)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan Ann Arbor (2015-2017)

Society Memberships: ^top

AIAA, ASME