Assistant Professor, Aerospace-Mechanical Engineering | Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering | Member of the Graduate Faculty | Assistant Professor, Applied Mathematics - GIDP
Hossein Rastgoftar is currently an assistant professor in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Arizona. Prior to this, he was an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Michigan from 2020 to 2021. He was also an assistant research scientist 2017 to 2020) and a postdoctoral researcher 2015 to 2017) in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University in 2015 and has two MS degrees one in Mechanical Systems and the other in Solid Mechanics) and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering-Thermo-Fluids. Rastgoftar’s areas of interestdecision-making under uncertainty, human-robotic interaction, swarm robotics, system autonomy, UAS traffic management, intelligent transportation, formal specification and verification, and finite-state abstraction of dynamical systems.
Hossein Rastgoftar, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a deformable uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) with vertical take-off and landing capabilities. The UAV, named 'Continuum-Deformable multi-Copter-based Uncrewed Aerial System', is designed to be energy-efficient and zero-emission, making it a potential solution for meeting the United Nations' goal of zero emissions in aviation by 2050.
Key aspects of the grant:
- Development of a deformable UAV with vertical take-off and landing capabilities for aerial imaging, surveillance, and cooperative payload transport applications.
- The UAV can aggressively deform to pass through narrow passages, making it suitable for under-canopy operations such as crop sensing and disease detection.
- The UAV offers a solution for payload delivery in urban areas and can transport medical supplies, commodities, and first aid supplies during natural disasters.
- The UAV is designed to be resilient to inclement weather conditions and offers robust operations due to its multiple quadcopter design and essential structural rigidity.