Autonomous Systems, aviation and TAS-S

Photo of Dr. Burak Yuksek with the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco in the background

Aviation has been a passion for me since my childhood. Whenever I heard an airplane or helicopter, I was trying to spot it in the sky and guess what type of aircraft it was and where it was going.  Even now, the 32 years old me can’t stop searching the sky when I hear them.  I am not sure how the universe works but now I find myself working just next to Cranfield Airport at Cranfield University!

I got my MSc and PhD degrees at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Mechatronics Engineering Department. Between 2013-2020, I studied modeling, system identification and control system design on aerial vehicles  at the ITU Aerospace Research Center (ARC). 

After my graduation, and of course when the pandemic restrictions allowed, I joined the TAS-S node at Cranfield University.  This was on the 4th of May 2021 and since then, I have met many researchers from different fields across both  Cranfield and Lancaster Universities.  We have had chance to discuss the research topics together and these meetings have extended my horizon as we discuss the research topics from different points of view. We address the trustworthiness issues of the autonomous systems from technical, ethical and legal perspectives. For years, I have worked and studied with colleagues from similar domains as me.  As part of the TAS-S project,  I now have a chance to discuss the autonomy from the ethical aspect which is quite critical for integration of the autonomous systems into people’s daily lives.  

I am looking forward to improving the collaboration with researchers from technical and social science backgrounds. It will be very interesting for me to develop control and decision-making algorithms while considering the ethical and cyber security aspects at the same time.

You can find out more about my research on my Cranfield University staff page.  My PhD thesis and publications are also available on the TAS-S Publications page.