Humbert, J. Sean
Associate Professor
Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Aerospace Engineering
EDUCATION
- Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering
- M.S., California Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering
- B.S., University of California, Davis, Mechanical Engineering
BACKGROUND
Dr. J. Sean Humbert holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Davis, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Caltech. He joined the University of Maryland as an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering in the Fall of 2005. Prof. Humbert’s research interests are the intersection of dynamics, control, and estimation theory with bio-inspired sensing and locomotion. Recent work has focused on the flight mechanics and distributed sensing and estimation approaches in small-scale organisms. Best paper honors include the AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, the American Control Conference, and the International Conference on Insect Sensors and Robotics. Dr. Humbert recently won the AIAA National Capital Section Hal Andrews Young Scientist/Engineer Award, and is the recipient of an ARO Young Investigator Award. He is the former Director of Maryland's Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory, and currently serves as an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and the Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles at the University of Colorado Boulder.
HONORS AND AWARDS
- Army Research Office (ARO) Young Investigator Award, 2010-2012
- Best Paper in the Dynamics and Control of Nano-Class Unmanned Systems (Invited) Session, American Control Conference (ACC), 2010
- Best Paper in the Helicopter Control Session, American Control Conference (ACC), 2010
- Best Paper in the Marine Systems II Session, American Control Conference (ACC), 2010
- AIAA National Capital Section Hal Andrews Young Engineer of the Year Award, 2009
- AIAA Outstanding Professor of the Year, Department of Aerospace Engineering, UMCP, 2007
- AIAA Outstanding Mentor Award, Department of Aerospace Engineering, UMCP, 2006
- Best Paper Award, AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control, 2005
- Best Student Paper, American Control Conference (ACC), 2004
- Best Poster Prize, International Conference on Insect Sensors and Robotics, 2004
- 1st Place, Red Bull Flügtag Human-Powered Flying Competition, 2002, 2003
- Departmental Citation, Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Davis, 1997
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Professional Services
- Reviewer for: IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Biological Cybernetics, Journal of Aircraft, Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, and Journal of the American Helicopter Society.
Flight Dynamics and Control, Bioinspired Perception and Estimation, Autonomous Robotics, Micro and Surgical Robotics
Journal Articles
- Vance JT, Faruque I, and Humbert JS, “Kinematic Strategies for Mitigating Gust Perturbations in Insects,” Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, Vol. 8, 2012.
- Humbert JS and Faruque I, “Analysis of Insect-Inspired Wingstroke Kinematic Perturbations for Longitudinal Control,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 618-623, 2011.
- Xu P, Humbert JS, Abshire P, “Analog VLSI Implementation of Wide-Field Integration Methods,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 465-487, 2011.
- Shoemaker PA, Hyslop AM and Humbert JS, “Optic Flow Estimation on Trajectories Inspired by Closed-Loop Flight,” Biological Cybernetics, Vol. 104, No. 4, pp. 339-350, 2011.
- Grauer J, Ulrich E, Hubbard JE, Pines DJ, Humbert JS, “Testing and System Identification of an Ornithopter in Longitudinal Flight,” AIAA Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 660-667, 2011.
- Conroy JK, Humbert JS, and Pines DJ, “System Identification of a Rotary Wing Micro Air Vehicle,” Journal of the American Helicopter Society, Vol. 56, No. 2, 2011.
- Hyslop AM Krapp HG and Humbert JS, “Control Theoretic Interpretation of Directional Motion Preferences in Optic Flow Processing Interneurons,” Biological Cybernetics, Vol. 103, pp. 339-352, 2010.
- Ulrich ER, Faruque I, Grauer J, Pines DJ, Humbert JS, and Hubbard JE, “Control Model for Robotic Samara: Dynamics about a Coordinated helical Turn,” AIAA Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 33, No. 6, pp. 1921-1927, 2010.
- Faruque I and Humbert JS, “Dipteran Insect Flight Dynamics: Part 2: Lateral-Directional Motions About Hover,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 265, No. 3, pp. 306-313, 2010.
- Faruque I and Humbert JS, “Dipteran Insect Flight Dynamics: Part 1: Longitudinal Motions about Hover,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 264, No. 2, pp. 538-552, 2010.
- Ulrich ER, Pines DJ, and Humbert JS, “Pitch and Heave Control of Robotic Samara Micro Air Vehicles,” AIAA Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 1290-1299, 2010.
- Roget B, Sitaraman J, Harmon R, Grauer J, Hubbard JE, Humbert JS, “Computational Study of Flexible Wing Ornithopter Flight,” AIAA Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 46, No. 6, pp. 2016-2031, 2010.
- Hyslop AM and Humbert JS, “Autonomous Navigation in 3-D Urban Environments Using Wide-Field Integration of Optic Flow,” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp.147-159, 2010.
- Humbert JS and Hyslop AM, “Bio-Inspired Visuomotor Convergence,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 121-130, 2010.
- Ulrich ER, Humbert JS, and Pines DJ, “From Falling to Flying: The Path to Powered Flight of a Robotic Samara Nano Air Vehicle,” Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, Vol. 5, No. 4, 2010.
- Grauer J, Conroy JK, Hubbard JE Jr, and Humbert JS, “System Identification of a Miniature Helicopter,” AIAA Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 1260-1269, 2009.
- Conroy JK, Gremillion G, Raganathan BN, Humbert JS, “Implementation of Wide-Field Integration of Optic Flow for Autonomous Quadrotor Navigation,” Autonomous Robots, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp.189-198, 2009.
- Humbert JS and Krener AJ, “Dynamics and Control of Entrained Solutions in Multi-Mode Moore-Greitzer Compressor Models,” International Journal of Control, Vol. 71, No. 5, pp. 807-821, 1998.
Conference Proceedings
- Ranganathan BN, Dimble KD, Faddy JM and Humbert JS, “Underwater Navigation Behaviors Using Wide-Field Integration Methods,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany, May 2013.
- MacFarlane M and Humbert JS, “Forward Flight Dynamics of an Insect-Inspired Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle,” AHS International Specialists’ Meeting on Unmanned Rotorcraft and Network Centric Operations, Scottsdale, AZ, Jan 2013.
- Hrishikeshavan V, Humbert JS and Chopra I, “Controllability and Disturbance Gramian Analysis of a Shrouded Rotor Micro Air Vehicle in Hover,” AHS International Specialists’ Meeting on Unmanned Rotorcraft and Network Centric Operations, Scottsdale, AZ, Jan 2013.
- Gardner R, Humbert JS and Chopra I, “Maneuverability Comparison of Flybar and Flybarless Micro-Helicopters,” AHS International Specialists’ Meeting on Unmanned Rotorcraft and Network Centric Operations, Scottsdale, AZ, Jan 2013.
- Keshavan J and Humbert JS, “A H_∞ Loopshaping Approach for Autonomous Bio-Inspired Visual Navigation in Three-Dimensional Urban Environments,” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Maui, Hi, Dec 2012.
- Gremillion G, Galfond M, Krapp HG and Humbert JS, “Biomimetic Sensing and Modeling of the Ocelli Visual System of Flying Insects,” IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Villamoura, Potrugal, Oct 2012.
- Keshavan J and Humbert JS, “A H_∞ Loopshaping Approach for Optic Flow Based Visual Navigation,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, Minneapolis, MN, Aug 2012.
- Faruque I, MacFarlane K and Humbert JS, “Reduced Order Forward Flight Dynamics Models for Dipteran Insects,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, Minneapolis, MN, Aug 2012.
- Keshavan J and Humbert JS, “A H_∞ Controller Synthesis Framework for Vision-Based Obstacle Avoidance Applications,” ICME Conference on Complex Medical Engineering, Kobe, Japan, July 2012.
- Penskiy I, Samuel P, Humbert JS and Bergbreiter S, “A Bio-inspired Active Tail Control Actuator for Nano Air Vehicles,” IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), St. Paul, MN, May 2012.
- Faruque I and Humbert JS, “Reduced Order Roll/Yaw Model for Dipteran Flapping Forward Flight,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, AIAA-2010-8233, Portland, OR, 2011.
- Xu P, Abshire P, and Humbert JS, “Motion Image Sensor with On-chip Adaptation and Programmable Filtering,” International Conference on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2011.
- Macfarlane M, Bush B, Faruque I, Humbert JS, and Baeder J, “Quasi-Steady and Computational Aerodynamics Applied to Hovering Drosophila Dynamics,” 29th Applied Aerodynamics Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2011.
- Gerardi S, Humbert JS, Pierce L, and Sarabandi K, “Velocity Estimation Using Optic Flow and Radar,” SPIE Proceedings 8031, Orlando, FL, 2011.
- Pierce L, Humbert JS, Gerardi S, Sarabandi K, and Moallem M “Combined radar and Optical Flow Navigation for Flying Robots in Urban Areas,” International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and UNSC/USRI National Radio Science Meeting, 2011.
- Bush B, Macfarlane M, Baeder J and Humbert JS, “Development of Immersed Boundary Code with Applications to MAV Stability Analysis,” Army Science Conference, November 2010.
- Grauer J, Ulrich E, Hubbard JE, Pines DJ, and Humbert JS, “Model Structure Determination of an Ornithopter Aerodynamics Model from Flight Data,” AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, AIAA-2010-41, Orlando, Florida, 2010.
- Zarovy S, Costello M, Mehta A, Gremillion G, Miller DS, Ranganathan B, Samuel PD, and Humbert JS, “Experimental Study of Gust Effects on Micro Air Vehicles,” AIAA Conference on Atmospheric Flight Mechanics, AIAA-2010-7818, Toronto, Canada, 2010.
- Gremillion G and Humbert JS, “System Identification of a Quadrotor Micro Air Vehicle,” AIAA Conference on Atmospheric Flight Mechanics, AIAA-2010-7644, Toronto, Canada, 2010.
- Grauer J, Ulrich E, Hubbard JE, Pines DJ, and Humbert JS, “Identification of a Robotic Samara Aerodynamic/Multi-Body Dynamic Model,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, AIAA-2010-8233, Toronto, Canada, 2010.
- Gerardi S, Ulrich E, Humbert JS and Pines DJ, “Hover Stabilization of a Controllable Mechanical Samara,” AIAA Conference on Atmospheric Flight Mechanics, AIAA-2010-7873, Toronto, Canada, 2010.
- Grauer J, Ulrich E, Hubbard JE, Pines DJ, and Humbert JS, “System Identification of an Ornithopter Aerodynamics Model,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, AIAA-2010-7632, Toronto, Canada, 2010.
- Ulrich E, Faruque I, Pines DJ, Humbert JS, “Control Model for Robotic Samara: Dynamics about a Coordinated Helical Turn,” American Controls Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2010, invited paper. Winner of best paper in session award.
- Dimble K and Humbert JS, “Extraction of Relative Proximity from Electrostatic Images Using Wide-Field Integration Methods,” American Control Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2010. Winner of best paper in session award.
- Keshavan J and Humbert JS, “MAV Stability Augmentation Using Outputs from Hair Sensor Arrays,” American Control Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2010. Winner of best paper in session award.
- Humbert JS, Chopra I, Fearing RS, Full RJ, Wood RJ and Dickinson MH, “Development of Micromechanics for Micro Autonomous Systems (ARL-MAST CTA Program),” SPIE Proceedings 7318, April, 2009.
- Grauer J, Conroy JK, Hubbard JE Jr, Humbert JS, and Pines DJ, “Field Calibration of Inertial Measurement Units for Miniature Unmanned Aircraft,” AIAA Infotech at Aerospace Conference, AIAA-2009-2064, Seattle, WA, 2009.
- Hyslop AM and Humbert JS, “Wide-Field Integration Methods for Autonomous Navigation in 3-D Environments,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation, and Control, Paper AIAA 2008-7252, Honolulu, HI, 2008.
- Grauer J, Conroy JK, Hubbard JE Jr, and Humbert JS, “System Identification of a Miniature Helicopter,” AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference, AIAA-2008-6898, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2008.
- Harmon R, Grauer J, Hubbard J, and Humbert JS, “Experimental Determination of Ornithopter Membrane Wing Shapes used for Simple Aerodynamic Modeling,” AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference, AIAA-2008-6237, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2008.
- Roget B, Sitaraman J, Harmon R, Grauer J, Conroy JK, Hubbard JE Jr, Humbert JS, “A Computational Study of Flexible Wing Ornithopter Flight,” AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference, AIAA-2008-6397, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2008.
- Humbert JS, Hyslop AM, and Chinn M, “Experimental Validation of Wide-Field Integration Methods for Autonomous Navigation,” IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), San Diego, CA, 2007.
- Humbert JS and Frye MA, “Extracting Behaviorally Relevant Retinal Image Motion Cues via Wide-Field Integration,” American Control Conference, pp. 2724-2729, Minneapolis, MN, 2006.
- Humbert JS, Murray RM, and Dickinson MH, “A Control-Oriented Analysis of Bio-Inspired Visuomotor Convergence,” 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 245-250, Seville, Spain, 2005.
- Humbert JS, Murray RM, and Dickinson MH, “Pitch-Altitude Control and Terrain Following Based on Bio-Inspired Visuomotor Convergence,” AIAA Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control, AIAA 2005-6280, San Francisco, CA, 2005. Winner of best paper award.
- Humbert JS, Murray RM, and Dickinson MH, “Sensorimotor Convergence in Visual Navigation and Flight Control Systems,” 16TH IFAC World Congress, Prague, 2005.
- Reiser MB, Humbert JS, Dunlop MJ, Del Vecchio D, Murray RM, and Dickinson MH, “Vision as a Compensatory Mechanism for Disturbance Rejection in Upwind Flight,” American Control Conference, pp. 311-316, Boston, MA, 2004. Winner of best student paper competition.
- Indermuehle KC, Brillhart R, Moehrle FX, and Humbert JS, “Determination of Environment for Component Testing Using Test and Analysis,” IMAC-XXI, Kissimmee, FL, 2003.
- Lacombe A, Pichon T, Ferrey M, Ellis R, Humbert JS, and Payne FM, “Ground Qualification of an Improved C-C Deployable Nozzle Extension Assembly for Delta IV,” 38th AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference, AIAA 2002-3585, Indianapolis, IN, 2002.
- Pichon T, Lacombe A, Joyez P, Ellis R, Humbert JS, and Payne, FM, “RL10B-2 Nozzle Extension Assembly Improvements for Delta IV,” 52nd International Astronautical Congress, Toulouse, France, 2001.
- Humbert JS and Krener AJ, “Analysis of Higher Order Moore-Greitzer Compressor Models,” IEEE Conference on Control Applications, pp. 651 – 656, Hartford, CT, 1997.
Abstracts
- Miller DS, Gremillion G, Ranganathan B, Samuel PD, Zarovy S, Costello M, Mehta A, and Humbert JS, “Challenges Present in the Development and Stabilization of a Micro Quadrotor Helicopter,” Autonomous Weapons Summit and GNC Challenges for Miniature Autonomous Systems Workshop, October 2010.
- Shoemaker PA and Humbert JS, “Vision-Based Local Guidance and Collision Avoidance with Elaborated Motion Detection Models,” Autonomous Weapons Summit and GNC Challenges for Miniature Autonomous Systems Workshop, October 2010.
- Vance JT and Humbert JS, “The Effects of Differential Wing Stroke Amplitude and Offset on Insect Body Moments During Perturbed Flight Conditions,” American Society of Biomechanics, Rhode Island, August 2010.
- Vance JT and Humbert JS, “Mechanisms of Gust Rejection in the Honeybee Apis mellifera,” Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Seattle, Washington, January 2010.
- Shoemaker PA and Humbert JS, “Progress on Bio-Inspired Visual Navigation,” GNC Challenges for Miniature Autonomous Systems Workshop, October 2008.
- Humbert JS and Hyslop AM, “Interpretations of HS Tangential Cell Sensitivity Patterns,” Sensors and Sensing in Biology and Engineering, Calabria, Italy, October 2008.
- Humbert JS and Hyslop AM, “Control-Theoretic Interpretations of Tangential Cell Sensitivity Patterns,” 2nd International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Sweden, September 2008.
- Conroy JK and Humbert JS, “Wide-Field Integration for Corridor Navigation of a Micro Helicopter,” IROS Workshop on Visual Guidance Systems for Small Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, Nice, France, September 2008.
- Humbert JS, “Bio-Inspired Visuomotor Convergence,” International Conference on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines, Cleveland, OH, June 2008.
- Humbert JS, “Bio-Inspired Visuomotor Convergence,” International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robotics, Ascona, Switzerland, 2007.
- Humbert JS, Murray RM, and Dickinson MH, “Wide-Field Integration Based Navigation and Flight Control Systems,” International Conference on Insect Sensors and Robotics, Brisbane, Australia, 2004. Winner of best student poster prize.