Aerial autonomy
Uncertainty-Aware Vision-Based Autonomous Aerial Refueling
Vision-aided state estimation and uncertainty-aware MPC for probe-and-drogue docking.
Submitted to IEEE ICRA 2027
Minhyuk Jang.
My research is in robotics, with a focus on robust state estimation, learning-based control, and safe motion planning. I work with Prof. Naira Hovakimyan at the Advanced Controls Research Laboratory.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ph.D. student, Mechanical Science & Engineering · 2025–present GPA: 4.0 / 4.0
Seoul National University
B.S., Artificial Intelligence & Mechanical Engineering · 2025 GPA: 3.99 / 4.0
Research
Learning & safe planning
Safe Flow Expansion: Discovering Safe Robot Behaviors in Out-of-Distribution Motion Planning
Conditional flow matching with control-barrier safety checks to discover new actions in unfamiliar environments.
Submitted to IEEE ICRA 2027
Robust robot localization
WRAP: Wasserstein-Robust Adaptive Plug-in for Robot Localization
Adaptive noise statistics and a Wasserstein-robust update for EKF/ESKF localization.
Submitted to IEEE RA-L
Nonlinear state estimation
Residual-Aware Distributionally Robust EKF: Absorbing Linearization Mismatch via Wasserstein Ambiguity
A robust extended Kalman filter that accounts for noise mismatch and linearization error.
IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2026
* Equal contribution
Projects
Autonomous vehicles
Autonomous obstacle avoidance
Perception, planning, and control deployed on a full-scale Polaris GEM e4.
Details
Grand Award · 2024
Korea Robot Aircraft Competition
Led a 25-member team in VTOL design and flight testing; first place among 39 teams.
DetailsRobotic mechanisms
Origami-inspired landing gear
A length-adjustable mechanism, prototyped and tested on a flying quadrotor.
DetailsSampling-based control
Adaptive tuning for MPPI control
Automatic inverse-temperature tuning for model predictive path integral control.
DetailsAIAA Design / Build / Fly
Autonomous glider landing
Landing control for a glider launched from a mothership at 100 m altitude.
DetailsAircraft development
VTOL: first prototype
Building and testing a quadplane through hover and transition flight.
DetailsPublications
Full citationsUncertainty-Aware Vision-Based Autonomous Aerial Refueling
Submitted to IEEE ICRA 2027
Safe Flow Expansion: Discovering Safe Robot Behaviors in Out-of-Distribution Motion Planning
Submitted to IEEE ICRA 2027
WRAP: Wasserstein-Robust Adaptive Plug-in for Robot Localization
Submitted to IEEE RA-L
Residual-Aware Distributionally Robust EKF: Absorbing Linearization Mismatch via Wasserstein Ambiguity
IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2026
On the Steady-State Distributionally Robust Kalman Filter
IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2025
Stability Analysis of Disturbance Observer under Model Uncertainty with Different System Degrees between True and Nominal Systems
Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems (ICROS), 2024
* Equal contribution
Experience & service
Full CVResearch
2025 — Present
Advanced Controls Research Laboratory
Research Assistant · UIUC
2023 — 2025
Learning and Decision Systems Lab
Research Intern · Seoul National University
2024
NEARTHLAB
Aerospace Engineering Intern · GNC Team
Teaching & service
2026
TAM 210/211 — Statics
Teaching Assistant · UIUC
Reviewer
IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing
IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems
2023 — 2025
Bulnabi — SNU Drone Club
Team Leader · Quadrotor build/fly seminars