Vrushabh Zinage

I am a PhD Candidate at the University of Texas at Austin in Aerospace Engineering advised by Prof. Efstathios Bakolas and Prof. Takashi Tanaka. I am broadly interested in the intersection of motion planning, trajectory optimization, control theory, data-driven control, and robotics. My current research includes learning based control, operator theoretic control of nonlinear systems, information-theoretic motion planning, and safety-critical control theory using Control Barrier Functions.

I have previously interned at GAMMA Lab. of the University of Maryland under the advise of Prof. Dinesh Manocha on fast online motion planning and trajectory optimization algorithms. I have also interned at Airbus and Honeywell Aerospace, India.

Prior to joining UT, I worked with Prof. Satadal Ghosh on developing fast and efficient sampling-based motion planning and trajectory optimization based algorithms during my bachelor's at IIT Madras.


Latest News

  • 01-2025: I will be chairing the AIAA SciTech 2025 session on 'Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC-38)' at Orlando, Florida
  • 09-2024: 3 Papers submitted to ICRA 2025
  • 08-2024: One Paper accepted to AIAA SciTech 2025
  • 05-2024: One Paper submitted to AIAA SciTech
  • 05-2024: One Paper accepted at AIAA JGCD
  • 05-2024: One Paper accepted at TAC
  • 02-2024: I will be chairing the ACC 2024 session on 'Data-Driven Modeling and Control' at Toronto, Cannada
  • 01-2024: One paper accepted to ACC 2024
  • 10-2023: Selected as one of the top 6 finalists for AIAA GNC Best Paper Award to be held at SciTech 2024
  • 09-2023: Submitted a paper to ACC 2024
  • 09-2023: Attending IROS at Detroit
  • 08-2023: One Paper accepted at AIAA SciTech 2024
  • 06-2023: One Paper accepted at RAL
  • 03-2023: One Paper accepted at Neurocomputing

Scholarships and Awards

2021 Excellent Reviewer for the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (JGCD) (top journal in Aerospace controls).
2024 AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) Best Paper Finalist at SciTech 2024 held in Orlando, USA .
2023 Received the Professional Development Award at UT Austin .
2023 Received the ACC 2023 Student Travel Award .
2020 Media coverage for my undergraduate research at top national and regional media in India .
2019 Recognized by NPTEL for being the second learner who has taken maximum number of NPTEL Exams in India.
2019 Received the ACC Student Travel Award 2019 for my publication at American Control Conference 2019..
2016 Secured an All India Rank of 2523 out of 15,00,000 students in JEE Advanced Examination 2016 (for admission into IITs the top engineering institutions in India)
2014 Regional Mathematical Olympiad, Rajasthan, India: Top 30 students
2014 Represented Rajasthan state for the Indian National Mathematics Olympiad 2015 which leads to selection for the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO).
2014 Selected in the Top 1% (among 50,000 students) in the National Physics Olympiad 2014.
2014 Selected in the Top 2% (among 50,000 students) in the National Chemistry Olympiad 2014.
2014 Selected in the Top 2% (among 50,000 students) in the National Astronomy Olympiad 2014.
2012 National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) Scholarship awarded by National
Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), India.

Publications

2024

TransformerMPC: Accelerating Model Predictive Control via Transformers

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Ahmed Khalil, Efstathios Bakolas

Under review at ICRA 2025

Decentralized Safe and Scalable Multi-Agent Control Under Limited Actuation

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Abhishek Jha, Rohan Chandra, Efstathios Bakolas

Under review at ICRA 2025

Fast End-to-End Generation of Belief Space Paths for Minimum Sensing Navigation

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Lukas Taus, Vrushabh Zinage, Takashi Tanaka, Richard Tsai

Under review at ICRA 2025

Semi-global Exponential Stability for Dual Quaternion Based Rigid-Body Tracking Control

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Arjun Ram, Maruthi Akella, Efstathios Bakolas

Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics

Leveraging Gated Recurrent Units for Iterative Online Precise Attitude Control for Geodetic Missions

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Shrenik Zinage, Srinivas Bettadpur, Efstathios Bakolas

Accepted at AIAA SciTech 2025

Neural Differentiable Integral Control Barrier Functions for Unknown Nonlinear Systems with Input Constraints

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Rohan Chandra, Efstathios Bakolas

Under review at Learning for Dynamics and Control (L4DC) 2024

Disturbance Observer-based Robust Integral Control Barrier Functions for Nonlinear Systems with High Relative Degree

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Rohan Chandra, Efstathios Bakolas

American Control Conference (ACC) 2024

Decentralized Multi-Robot Social Navigation in Constrained Environments via Game-Theoretic Control Barrier Functions

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Rohan Chandra, Vrushabh Zinage, Efstathios Bakolas, Joydeep Biswas, Peter Stone

Under review at Autonomous Robots

2023

Optimal Sampling-based Motion Planning in Gaussian Belief Space for Minimum Sensing Navigation

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Ali Reza Pedram, Takashi Tanaka

Under review at International Journal of Robotics Research

Neural Koopman Control Barrier Functions for Safety-critical Control of Unknown Nonlinear Systems

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Efstathios Bakolas

American Control Conference 2023

Semi-global Exponential Stability for Dual Quaternion Based Rigid-Body Tracking Control

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Arjun Ram, Maruthi Akella, Efstathios Bakolas

AIAA SciTech 2024

3D-Online Generalized Sensed Shape Expansion: A Probabilistically Complete Motion Planner in Obstacle-Cluttered Unknown Environments

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Senthil Arul Hariharan, Satadal Ghosh, Dinesh Manocha

Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)

Neural Koopman Lyapunov Control

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Efstathios Bakolas

Neurocomputing

2022

Optimal Sensor Gain Control for Minimum-information Estimation of Continuous-time Gauss-Markov Processes

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Takashi Tanaka

American Control Conference 2022

Koopman Operator Based Modeling and Control of Rigid Body Motion Represented by Dual Quaternions

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Efstathios Bakolas

American Control Conference 2022

Continuous-time Channel Gain Control for Minimum-information Kalman-bucy Filtering

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Takashi Tanaka, Vrushabh Zinage, Valery Ugrinovskii, Mikael Skoglund

Transactions on Automatic Control (TAC)

Minimum-fuel Spacecraft Rendezvous based on Sparsity Promoting Optimization

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Efstathios Bakolas

AIAA SciTech 2022

2021

Koopman Operator Based Modeling for Quadrotor Control on SE(3)

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Efstathios Bakolas

IEEE Controls Systems Letters (LCSS)

Far-Field Minimum-Fuel Spacecraft Rendezvous using Koopman Operator and l2/l1 Optimization

University of Texas at Austin, USA

Vrushabh Zinage, Efstathios Bakolas

American Control Conference 2021

Mathematical Properties of Generalized Shape Expansion-Based Motion Planning Algorithms

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Adhvaith Ramkumar Vrushabh Zinage, Satadal Ghosh

Under review at RAL

Fast and Efficient Motion Planning using Directional Sampling-based Generalized Shape Expansion

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Vrushabh Zinage, Satadal Ghosh

AIAA SciTech 2021

2020

On Probabilistic Completeness of the Generalized Shape Expansion-based Motion Planning Algorithm

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Adhvaith Ramkumar, Vrushabh Zinage, Satadal Ghosh

Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) 2020

Generalized shape expansion-based motion planning in three-dimensional obstacle-cluttered environment

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Vrushabh Zinage, Satadal Ghosh

AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics

Directional sampling-based generalized shape expansion for accelerated motion planning in 2-d obstacle-cluttered environments

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Vrushabh Zinage, Satadal Ghosh

IEEE Controls Systems Letters (LCSS)

Generalized shape expansion-based motion planning for uavs in three dimensional obstacle-cluttered environment

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Vrushabh Zinage, Satadal Ghosh

AIAA SciTech 2020

2019

An Efficient Motion Planning Algorithm for UAVs in obstacle-cluttered Environment

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Vrushabh Zinage, Satadal Ghosh

American Control Conference 2019

On the Application of Adaptive Online Learning based Control on Single Axis Tilting Thrust Vectored Quadcopter

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Amardeep Mishra, Vrushabh Zinage

Asian Control Conference 2019

Motion Planning of Thrust Vectored Airship Using Spherical Expansion Based Algorithm with Adaptive Fuzzy Control

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Amardeep Mishra, Vrushabh Zinage

Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences 2019

Internships

Research Intern at University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA.

Intern at Airbus, Bangalore.

Intern at Honeywell Aerospace, Bangalore

Selected Coursework

Graduate Coursework
(University of Texas at Austin, USA)		 Undergraduate Coursework
(IIT Madras, India)
Fall 2021 Fall 2022 August 2016 - May 2020
ASE 380P: Analytical Methods I
(Prof. Leilani Battle)		 ASE 397R: Independent Research Project
(Prof. Efstathios Bakolas)		 EE5121 Convex Optimization
(Prof. Srinath Srinivasa)
ASE 381P: Linear Systems
(Prof. Maruthi Akella)		 ECE 381V: Learning based Optimal Control
(Prof. Sandeep Chinchali)		 EE 6415 Aerospace Systems Control and Estimation
(Prof. Shrisha Rao)
ASE 397R: Independent Research Project
(Prof. Efstathios Bakolas)		 CS/DS 812 Nonlinear Control Systems
(Prof. G Srinivasaraghavan)
Spring 2021 Spring 2022 EE 6418 Dynamic Games: Theory and Applications
(Prof. G Srinivasaraghavan)
ASE 389P: Methods of Orbit Determination
(Prof. Moribah Jah)		 ASE 381P: Multivariable Control Systems
(Prof. Takashi Tanaka)		 AS 5213 Design of MAVs and UAVs
(Prof. Dinesh Babu Jayagopi)
ASE 381P: Optimal Control Theory
(Prof. Efstathios Bakolas)		 Fall 2023 AS 2040 Flight Dynamics I
(Prof. Jaya Nair and Prof. T K Srikanth)
ASE 397R: Independent Research Project
(Prof. Efstathios Bakolas)		 CMSC 828W: Robot Learning
(Prof. Yuke Zuke)		 AS 3050 Flight Dynamics II
Prof. V Ramasubramanian

Professional Services

AIAA SciTech, Conference on Decision and Control, American Control Conference, International Conference of Robotics and Automation, IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), IFAC International Symposium on Advances in Automotive Control, Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), International Conference on Learning and Representations (ICLR), Learning for Dynamics and Control (L4DC), IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference & Expo

AIAA Journal of Guidance Control and Dynamics (JGCD), Transactions on Robotics (TRO), IEEE Control Systems Letters, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL), International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, Automatica, International Journal of Control

Media Coverage