UT Austin · Austin, TX

The University of Texas at Austin

Information-shaping control, secure communication, and robust coordination for autonomous aircraft and dense airspace operations.

Deception and observabilityDirectional jammingAuction-based coordinationVertiport sequencing

UT Austin’s team, led by Ufuk Topcu, studies how aircraft and airspace coordinators can operate safely when the information they rely on may be incomplete, uncertain, strategically manipulated, or deliberately corrupted. Its work progresses along three connected thrusts: information-shaping control for secure aircraft operations, scalable and robust coordination for dense airspace operations, and secure coordination when Remote ID or GPS-derived information cannot be trusted. The team collaborates with GWU and Vanderbilt.

Research thrusts

  1. 01

    Information-shaping control

    Control that shapes what an adversary can learn or observe, including deception against data-driven attackers and controllers that limit adversarial observability, validated on the ADMIRE aircraft model.

  2. 02

    Directional jamming and nulling

    Jointly optimizing a UAV’s motion and antenna phases to jam an eavesdropper while keeping a communication null toward a friendly receiver.

  3. 03

    Scalable, robust coordination

    Game-theoretic mitigation of airspace-sector overload on real European traffic data, the TACo auction for consensus without disclosing private preferences, and chance-constrained correlated equilibria for vertiports.

    UC-07

  4. 04

    Coordination under untrusted information

    Vertiport sequencing that remains robust to misreported or spoofed arrival times, and joint work on spoofing-aware planning and GPS-robust separation assurance.

    UC-03with Vanderbiltwith GWU

Figures

From the research

Two line charts comparing robust and nominal policies as observation contamination increases.
GWU · UT AustinSeparation assurance under increasing GPS corruption. The robust multi-agent policy keeps near mid-air collisions near zero and maintains larger separation than the nominal policy.
Diagram of three aircraft converging on a waypoint with several possible arrival orderings.
UT AustinDecentralized coordination at a shared waypoint. Aircraft agree on one safety-feasible arrival sequence without revealing their private delay costs.

Demos

See UT Austin's work in action

All demos

UT AustinSimulation

Directional jamming and nulling

A UAV adjusts its trajectory and antenna beam pattern to jam an eavesdropper while keeping a communication null toward a friendly client (ACC 2026).

Use cases

Where UT Austin contributes

People

Researchers and students

Staff1

  • Meredith AlbersTechnical Project Manager

Postdoctoral researchers2

  • Filippos Fotiadis
  • Scott Yue Guan

PhD students3

  • Jaehan Im
  • Quentin Rommel
  • Jennifer Rozenblit

Publications

Publications

8 published or accepted papers

  1. Secure Coordination for Vertiport Sequencing in Advanced Air Mobility

    J. Im, F. Fotiadis, U. Topcu, D. Fridovich-Keil

    AIAA SciTech Forum, 2027Accepted

    ConferenceUT AustinUC-07

  2. Chance-Constrained Correlated Equilibria for Robust Noncooperative Coordination

    J. Im, D. Fridovich-Keil, U. Topcu

    IEEE Control Systems Letters, 2026

    JournalUT AustinUC-07

  3. Coordinated UAV Beamforming and Control for Directional Jamming and Nulling

    F. Fotiadis, B. M. Sadler, U. Topcu

    American Control Conference (ACC), 2026

    ConferenceUT Austin

  4. Deception Against Data-Driven Linear-Quadratic Control

    F. Fotiadis, A. Kanellopoulos, K. G. Vamvoudakis, U. Topcu

    IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2026Conditionally accepted

    JournalUT Austin

  5. Game-Theoretic Regulated Decentralized Coordination for Airspace Sector Overload Mitigation

    J. Im, D. Delahaye, D. Fridovich-Keil, U. Topcu

    Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2026Accepted

    JournalUT AustinUC-07

  6. Noncooperative Coordination via a Trading-Based Auction

    J. Im, F. Fotiadis, D. Delahaye, U. Topcu, D. Fridovich-Keil

    IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2026

    JournalUT AustinUC-07

  7. Remote ID Spoofing-Aware Trajectory Planning for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems

    J. Webb, B. Bjorkman, A. Diaz-Gonzalez, A. Coursey, N. W. Dahle, C. Lemieux-Mack, F. Fotiadis, G. Biswas, B. C. Ward, A. Taye

    AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2026

    ConferenceVanderbiltUT AustinUC-03

  8. Robust Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Small UAS Separation Assurance under GPS Degradation and Spoofing

    A. Zongo, F. Fotiadis, U. Topcu, P. Wei

    IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2026Accepted

    ConferenceGWUUT AustinUC-02