Ping Lu
Professor, Aerospace Engineering, San Diego State University
Friday, Jan. 26 | 10:40 a.m. | AERO 120
Abstract: Aerospace Guidance is a relatively young technical area, having only emerged as a stand-alone specialty during the Apollo Program. Today, with NASA’s Artemis Program aiming to send astronauts back to the Moon and other spacefaring nations worldwide actively pursuing exploration of the last frontier on an unprecedented scale, guidance has become an indispensable critical technology across the full spectrum of aerospace vehicle platforms and applications from autonomy to hypersonic flight to planetary landing.
In this presentation, we will explore what aerospace guidance is, why it is mission critical, how aerospace guidance has evolved from the pioneering innovations of the Apollo Program to the state-of-the-art technology in the Artemis Program, and what the future holds as we look to Mars and beyond.
Illustrative examples will be drawn from the speaker’s own research work to showcase compelling advances in modern aerospace guidance, and how they can make aerospace systems more capable, smarter, and safer.
Bio: Professor Ping Lu received his PhD degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan. He has over 30 years of experience in aerospace engineering research and education. His research expertise and interests are in Computational Guidance and Control. He has authored/co-authored over 200 journal and conference papers in this field.
He was a Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University until 2016, and since then a Professor and the Chair of the Aerospace Engineering Department at San Diego State University.
Professor Lu is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He was the recipient of the prestigious AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award in 2008, and a recipient of NASA Johnson Space Center Director’s Innovation Group Achievement Award in 2016. Professor Lu is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics - the premier international journal in aerospace guidance, control, and astrodynamics/flight dynamics.