PhD in Guidance and Control, Aerospace Engineering
A new lane transition guidance method for a quadrotor flying in an air corridor system. Utilizing the bearing information of the neighboring vehicles, the guidance method directs the quadrotor for a safe transition between two lanes. Comprising three sequential guidance phases, the method includes discerning guidance for determining neighboring vehicle velocity, longitudinal guidance to identify suitable gaps in the destination lane, and transit guidance to maneuver the quadrotor into the desired gap.
A novel guidance method enabling quadrotors to traverse planar gaps using bearings-only information of gap extremities. The proposed heading direction is designed using an elliptic shaping angle derived from the angular bisector orientation of the gap-bearing angles.
This research work considers a three-dimensional window traversal problem and proposes a guidance solution using the bearing information of window vertices. The guidance logic governs the commanded flight path angle and heading angle of the quadrotor. These commands comprise an angular bisector component with a shaping angle, facilitating traversal along a direction normal to the window plane and passing through the centroid.
Traversability-aware motion planning through a forest environment using VLM.
My educational journey focused on robotics and control.
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
Thesis: "Bearings-Only Quadrotor Guidance in Gap Traversal Scenarios"
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Advisor: Dr. Ashwini Ratnoo
National Institute of Technology Calicut, India
Thesis: "Design and real-time implementation of LabVIEW-based Fractional Order PID controller for a Magnetic Levitation system"
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Specialization: Instrumentation and Control Systems
GPA: 8.36
LBS College of Engineering, Kannur University, India
Percentage: 78.03
Honors: University First Rank Holder (Gold Medalist)
My career path spans both academic and industry research.
Flight Dynamics and Control Laboratory, AI-Transformed Aerospace Research Center, Korea Advanced Instititute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science(IISc), Bengaluru, India
National Institute of Technology, Thiruchirappally, India
Actively engaged in several cutting-edge research initiatives with interdisciplinary teams and industry partners.
Funding: SCA, LTU, Bo Rydin Foundation for Scientific Research [2025]-[2026]
Role: Project Lead
A project on autonomous navigation using Vision-Language Models (VLM), focusing on a Husky ground robot operating within complex forest environments. This project integrates LiDAR-based point cloud data collection and AI-driven methods for tree segmentation, digital terrain modeling, and estimation of tree parameters.
Peer-reviewed articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, and other scholarly works contributing to the advancement of knowledge in Robotics.
Authors: E. K. Midhun, A. Ratnoo
Journal: Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 48, No. 10, pp. 2310 - 2325, 2025
This paper addresses a novel bearings only three-dimesional guidance law for quadrotor window traversal applications.
Authors: E. K. Midhun, A. Ratnoo
Journal: Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 45, No. 12, pp. 2360-2368, 2022
This manuscript introduces an autonomous plannar gap traversal strategies for quadrotor relying completly on onboard bearings only information.
Authors: E. K. Midhun, A. Ratnoo
Journal: Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 564 - 572, 2024
This article proposes a bearing-only information-based quadrotorguidance method for safe lane transition in air corridors.
Authors: E. K. Midhun, A. Ratnoo
Conference: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Control, Decision and Information Technologies (CoDIT), pp. 1291-1295 (2023)
Venue: [Rome, Italy] | Presentation Type: Oral
This paper presents a novel trajectory planning algorithm for 3- Dimensional window traversal using bearing only information of the window extremities.
Authors: E. K. Midhun, A. Ratnoo
Conference: AIAA SCITECH 2022 Forum, pp. 2022-0539 (2022)
Venue: [San Diego, US] | Presentation Type: Virtual
This paper introduces a bearing-only measurement-based guidance method for quadrotor traversal through gaps between moving obstacles in a two-dimensional space.
Authors: E. K. Midhun, A. Ratnoo
Conference: Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pp. 482-487 (2021)
Venue: Athens, Greece | Presentation Type: Virtual
This paper considers bearing-only measurement-based guidance for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle to navigate through gaps between obstacles in a two-dimensional plane.
Authors: E. K. Midhun, Sunil Kumar T.K
Conference: 2016 IEEE 1st International Conference on Power Electronics, Intelligent Control and Energy Systems (ICPEICES), pp. 1-6 (2016)
Venue: [Delhi, India] | Presentation Type: Oral
This paper presents the design and experimental validation of Fractional Order PID controller on a Maglev system using LabVIEW.
Authors: G. Satheesh Krishnan, P. T. Bijilesh, S. P. Simon, G. V. Puthusserry, E. K. Midhun and T. Mithun
Conference: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics, Smart Grid and Renewable Energy (PESGRE2020), pp. 1-6 (2020)
Venue: [Cochin, India] | Presentation Type: Oral
Authors: Saneep K, Sundareswaran K, P Srinivasa Rao Nayak, G. V. Puthusserry, Kannan M, and E. K. Midhun
Conference: 2025 IEEE International Conference on Smart Technologies for Power, Energy, and Control(STPEC 2025), pp. 1-6 (2025)
Venue: [Goa, India] | Presentation Type: Oral
Authors: E. K. Midhun, A. Ratnoo
Status: Submitted to JGCD
Preprint: arXiv:2410.14367 | Date: Oct 2024
This paper focuses on developing a bearings-only measurement-based three-dimensional window traversal guidance method for quadrotor Uninhabitated Aerial Vehicles.