Roberto FurfaroView profile
Professor
Roberto Furfaro is a Professor in the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering and the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arizona, College of Engineering. He serves as Deputy Director of the Space, Security, Safety & Sustainability Center (S4C) and is a key figure in space situational awareness and planetary exploration systems. His educational background includes a Laurea Degree (MS equivalent) in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Rome 'La Sapienza' (1998) and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Arizona (2004). His research spans guidance and control of planetary landers, machine learning applications in space systems, hypersonic vehicle G&C, and systems engineering for small body proximity operations. He leverages advanced AI, particularly reinforcement learning and deep learning, to solve complex aerospace challenges. The recent publications reflect a strong trend toward intelligent, autonomous systems in spaceflight, especially using deep reinforcement learning for planetary landing, guidance under uncertainty, and space-based object tracking. His work bridges control theory, astrodynamics, and artificial intelligence. 2021 Da Vinci Fellow, College of Engineering AIAA Associate Fellow (2022) AAS Fellow (2021) Asteroid 133474 Roberto Furfaro named in honor of OSIRIS-REx contributions Prof. Furfaro has served as PI or Co-PI on over $80M in research grants from NASA, AFRL, and DoD. He has advised numerous students and leads research teams in autonomous space systems and machine learning applications. He is the Target Follow-up Working Group lead for the NASA NEO Surveyor Mission and was Systems Engineering Lead for SPOC during OSIRIS-REx Phase B-D. He is actively involved in professional service as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems and technical member of the AIAA Astrodynamics Committee and AAS Space Surveillance Committee.
