April 6, 2007
Tyler Summers, a second year Aerospace Engineering graduate student advised by Dr. Maruthi Akella, has received a 2007 US Postgraduate Fulbright Scholarship to Australia. He was also designated as the US Fulbright Alumni Scholar in recognition of being the highest ranked applicant to Australia in 2007. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international exchange program of the US Department of State and was established by Congress in 1946 to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The program annually awards approximately 1300 scholarships to US students in over 140 countries worldwide, including 12 to Australia.
Tyler will be conducting research on controlling vehicle formations for one year with Professor Brian D.O. Anderson at The Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Professor Anderson is one of the most distinguished members of the global engineering community; he is a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society, London. The research project will focus on merging and splitting operations in vehicle formations, specifically how these operations can be achieved in a decentralized fashion.
Tyler received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Christian University in December 2004. He worked for six summers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, four of them in the Aerospace Systems Development Center. He was also selected to participate in the 2007 Air Vehicles Directorate Summer Faculty Program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Upon completion of his Fulbright Program, he plans to return to UT and finish his PhD in Aerospace Engineering with an emphasis in control theory.
