Dimitra Panagou

Dimitra Panagou is an Associate Professor with the Department of Robotics and the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. She directs the Distributed Aerospace Systems and Control Laboratory (DASC Lab) located in the Ford Robotics Building, where she leads research in safe and resilient autonomy for robotic systems.

Her research interests focus on motion planning, coordination and control of robotic networks, autonomous multi-vehicle systems, nonlinear systems and control, navigation and guidance, distributed/decentralized control, and dynamic coverage. Professor Panagou's work emphasizes the development of planning, learning and control methods to address real-world, safety- and time-critical problems through provably correct solutions. Her research spans nonlinear systems, decision making under constraints and uncertainty, estimation and learning, mission planning, and networked control systems with applications across aerial, ground, marine, and space domains.

Professor Panagou's recent publications (2024-2025) demonstrate a strong focus on control barrier functions, safety-critical control, resilient multi-robot systems, and risk-aware navigation. Her work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications in autonomous systems, with particular emphasis on providing mathematical guarantees for safety and performance. The research spans multiple domains including aerial vehicles, marine systems, and ground robotics, addressing challenges in uncertain environments and under various constraints.

Professor Panagou has received several prestigious awards including:

• NASA Early Career Faculty Award
• AFOSR Young Investigator (YIP) Award
• NSF CAREER Award
• IEEE TCAC Best Student Paper Award (for work from her lab)

She has been invited to deliver a plenary talk at CDC 2024 and a keynote talk at ICRA 2025, highlighting her prominence in the control and robotics communities. Her research is supported by multiple grants from agencies including NASA, NSF, and AFOSR.

The Distributed Aerospace Systems and Control Laboratory (DASC Lab) is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities including a fleet of UAVs (Hummingbirds, Firefly, and Solos), a high-precision motion capture system with 14 VICON cameras, drone LiDAR, and various sensors. The lab conducts both indoor and outdoor flight experiments, with permission for outdoor flights over the Wave Field at the University of Michigan's North Campus.