Dr. Rajnikant Sharma, Associate Professor
Education
Brigham Young University Provo, UT, Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering November 2011
Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India, Master of Engineering (M. E.) in Aerospace Engineering July 2005
University of Rajasthan Jaipur, India, Bachelor of Engineering (B. E.) in Electrical Engineering June 2003
Publications
Journals and Books Chapters
[24] Manoharan, Amith; Sharma, Rajnikant; Sujit, P.B, ”Multi-AAV Cooperative Path Planning using Nonlinear
Model Predictive Control with Localization Constraints”, has been accepted for publication in the Transactions
on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2024.
[23] Manasreh, Dmitry, Munir D. Nazzal, Sk Abu Talha, Eshaan Khanapuri, Rajnikant Sharma, and Donghoon
Kim. ”Application of Autonomous Vehicles for Automated Roadside Safety Assessment.” Transportation
Research Record (2022): 03611981221095090
[22] Misra, Sohum, Kaarthik Sundar, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin Brink. ”Deployable, Data-Driven Unmanned
Vehicle Navigation System in GPS-Denied, Feature-Deficient Environments.” Journal of Intelligent & Robotic
Systems 105, no. 2 (2022): 1-21.
[21] E. Khanapuri, V. V. T. K. Chintalapati, R. Sharma and R. Gerdes, ”Learning Based Longitudinal Vehicle
Platooning Threat Detection, Identification and Mitigation,” in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles,
doi: 10.1109/TIV.2021.3122144.
[20] Biswas, Srijanee, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Goal-Aware Robocentric Mapping and Navigation of a Quadrotor
UAV.” Accepted for publication in Journal of Aerospace Information Systems (2021)
Rajnikant Sharma 3
[19] Chakraborty, Anusna, Kevin M. Brink, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Cooperative Relative Localization Using
Range Measurements Without a Priori Information.” IEEE Access 8 (2020): 205669-205684.
[18] Costley, Austin, Chase Kunz, Rajnikant Sharma, and Ryan Gerdes. “Low Cost, Open-Source Platform to
Enable Full-Sized Automated Vehicle Research.” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles (2020).
[17] Chakraborty, Anusna, Sohum Misra, Rajnikant Sharma, Kevin Brink, and Clark Taylor. “Cooperative Localization:
Challenges and Future Directions.” in Cooperative Localization and Navigation: Theory, Research,
and Practice. CRC Press, 2019
[16] Misra, Sohum, BingyuWang, Kaarthik Sundar, Rajnikant Sharma, and Sivakumar Rathinam. “Single vehicle
localization and routing in GPS-denied environments using range-only measurements.” IEEE Access 8 (2019):
31004-31017.
[15] Sundar, Kaarthik, Sivakumar Rathinam, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Path planning for unmanned vehicles with
localization constraints.” Optimization Letters 13, no. 5 (2019): 993-1009.
[14] Fisher, Thomas, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Rudder-Augmented Trajectory Correction for Small Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle to Minimize Lateral Image Errors.” Journal of Aerospace Information Systems 15, no. 9 (2018):
544-552.
[13] Chakraborty, Anusna, Sohum Misra, Rajnikant Sharma, and Clark N. Taylor. “Observability conditions for
switching sensing topology for cooperative localization.” Unmanned Systems 5, no. 03 (2017): 141-157.
[12] Rathinam, Sivakumar, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Sensor placement algorithms for a path covering problem.”
Cooperative Control of Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications (2017): 31.
[11] Dunn, Daniel D., Samuel A. Mitchell, Imran Sajjad, Ryan M. Gerdes, Rajnikant Sharma, and Ming Li.
“Regular: Attacker-induced traffic flow instability in a stream of semi-automated vehicles.” In 2017 47th
Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), pp. 499-510.
IEEE, 2017. (Journal equivalent in CS)
[10] Soodeh Dadras, Ryan Gerdes and Rajnikant Sharma, “Vehicular Platooning in an Adversarial Environment”,
10th ACM Symposium Information, Computer, and Communication Security, ACM AsiaCCS’15, 2015 (Journal
equivalent in CS).
[9] Lwowski, Jonathan, Liang Sun, Roberto Mexquitic-Saavedra, Rajnikant Sharma, and Daniel Pack. “A
Reactive Bearing Angle Only Obstacle Avoidance Technique for Unmanned Ground Vehicles.” Journal of
Automation and Control Research 1, no. 1, 2014.
[8] Rajnikant Sharma, Josiah Yoder, Hyukseong Kwon, and Daniel Pack. “Vision Based Mobile Target Geolocalization
and Target Discrimination Using Bayes Detection Theory.” In Distributed Autonomous Robotic
Systems, pp. 59-71. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2014.
[7] Huili Yu, Rajnikant Sharma, Randal W. Beard, “Observability-based local path planning and collision avoidance
for micro air vehicles using bearing-only measurements”, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2013.
[6] Rajnikant Sharma, Stephen Quebe, Randal W Beard, and Clark N. Taylor, “Bearing-only cooperative localization:
simulation and experimental results”, Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, 2013.
[5] Mangal Kothari, Rajnikant Sharma, Ian Postlethwaite, Randal W. Beard, Daniel Pack, “Cooperative target
capturing with incomplete target information”, Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, 2013.
[4] S. Gruber, C. Hager, H. Kwon, J. Yoder, R. Sharma, D. Pack, “Payload design for autonomous small UAVs”,
Handbook of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Springer, 2013.
[3] Rajnikant Sharma, Randal W. Beard, Stephen Quebe, Clark N. Taylor, “Graph based observability analysis
of bearing-only cooperative localization”, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol 28, Issue 2, p.522-529, 2012.
[2] Rajnikant Sharma, Jeffery Saunders, Randal W. Beard, “Reactive path planning for micro air vehicles using
bearing only measurements”, Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, Volume 65, Issue 1 (2012), p.409- 416.
[1] Rajnikant Sharma, Debashish Ghose, “Collision avoidance between UAV clusters using swarm intelligence
techniques”, International Journal of Systems Science, v.40 n.5, p.521-538, 2009.
Conferences
[54] Ammapalli, Jayanth, Ross Thayer, Rohith Boyinine, Anusna Chakraborty, and Rajnikant Sharma. ”Developing
RF Ranging-Based Multi-Rotor Test-Bed for Cooperative Localization.” In AIAA SCITECH 2024
Forum, p. 1780. 2024.
Rajnikant Sharma 4
[53] Craig, Aaron, Liam P. McKenna, and Rajnikant Sharma. ”Decentralized Reinforcement Learning for Target-
Centric Formation Control in Aerospace Vehicles: A Case Study with Quadrotor Vehicles.” In AIAA SCITECH
2024 Forum, p. 0121. 2024.
[52] Boyinine, Rohith, Eshaan Khanapuri, Anusna Chakraborty, and Rajnikant Sharma. ”On-demand Landmark
Activation to aid Navigation for Advanced Air Mobility.” In AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum, p. 2707. 2023.
[51] Elkoori Ghantala Karnam, Srikanth, and Rajnikant Sharma. ”Q-Learning based Pursuit-Evasion game in a
grid network with partial information.” In AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum, p. 2654. 2023.
[50] Mayle, Melody N., and Rajnikant Sharma. ”Optimal Informant Trajectories Applying Range-Based Guidance
Law for Target Interception.” In AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum, p. 2197. 2023.
[49] Khanapuri, Eshaan M., Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin Brink. ”Learning-based Detection of Stealthy False
Data Injection Attack Applied to Cooperative Localization Problem.” In AIAA SCITECH 2022 Forum, p.
2543. 2022.
[48] Mayle, Melody N., and Rajnikant Sharma. “Cooperative Localization in a GPS-Limited Environment Using
Inter-Vehicle Range Measurements for a System of Multiple, Non-Homogeneous Vehicles.” In AIAA Scitech
2021 Forum, p. 1883. 2021
[47] Omotuyi, Oyindamola, Sameer Pokhrel, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Distributed Quadrotor UAV Tracking using
a Team of Unmanned Ground Vehicles.” In AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum, p. 0266. 2021
[46] Boyinine, Rohith, Anusna Chakraborty, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin Brink. “Development of Sliding-Mode
Landing Controller using Cooperative Relative Localization with Pattern Generation.” In 2019 Sixth Indian
Control Conference (ICC), pp. 128-133. IEEE, 2019.
[45] Manoharan, Amith, Rajnikant Sharma, and P. B. Sujit. “Nonlinear Model Predictive Control to Aid Cooperative
Localization.” In 2019 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pp. 26-32.
IEEE, 2019.
[44] Misra, Sohum, Srijanee Biswas, Ali A. Minai, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Cooperative Search Area optimization
using Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in a GPS-denied Environment.” In 2019 International Conference
on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pp. 580-587. IEEE, 2019.
[43] Wang, Bingyu, Sivakumar Rathinam, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Landmark Placement for Cooperative Localization
and Routing of Unmanned Vehicles.” In 2019 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft
Systems (ICUAS), pp. 33-42. IEEE, 2019
[42] Khanapuri, Eshaan, Tarun Chintalapati, Rajnikant Sharma, and Ryan Gerdes. “Learning-based adversarial
agent detection and identification in cyber physical systems applied to autonomous vehicular platoon.” In
2019 IEEE/ACM 5th International Workshop on Software Engineering for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems
(SEsCPS), pp. 39-45. IEEE, 2019.
[41] Mishra, Nikita, Anusna Chakraborty, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin Brink. “Cooperative relative pose estimation
to aid landing of an unmanned aerial vehicle on a moving platform.” In 2019 Fifth Indian Control
Conference (ICC), pp. 277-282. IEEE, 2019
[40] Hartman, Chase R., and Rajnikant Sharma. “Development of a Velocity Controller for Following a Human
Using Target Velocity in a GPS-Denied Environment.” In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, p. 1452. 2019.
[39] Wang, Bingyu, Sivakumar Rathinam, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Landmark placement algorithms for multivehicle
path planning with localization constraints.” In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, p. 0389. 2019.
[38] Biswas, Srijanee, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Goal-aware Navigation of Quadrotor UAV for Infrastructure
Inspection.” In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, p. 1691. 2019.
[37] Chakraborty, Anusna, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin Brink. “Cooperative localization for multi-rotor UAVs.”
In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, p. 0684. 2019
[36] Holsinger, Seth D., and Rajnikant Sharma. “Multiple Target Tracking Via Dynamic Point Clustering on a
UAV Platform.” In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, p. 0387. 2019.
[35] Khanapuri, Eshaan M., and Rajnikant Sharma. “Uncertainty aware geo-localization of multi-targets with
multi-UAV using neural network and extended kalman filter.” In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, p. 1690. 2019.
[34] Misra, Sohum, Anusna Chakraborty, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin Brink. “Cooperative simultaneous arrival
of unmanned vehicles onto a moving target in gps-denied environment.” In 2018 IEEE Conference on Decision
and Control (CDC), pp. 5409-5414. IEEE, 2018
[33] Chakraborty, Anusna, Kevin Brink, Rajnikant Sharma, and Laith Sahawneh. “Relative pose estimation
using range-only measurements with large initial uncertainty.” In 2018 Annual American Control Conference
(ACC), pp. 5055-5061. IEEE, 2018.
[32] Sundar, Kaarthik, Shriram Srinivasan, Sohum Misra, Sivakumar Rathinam, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Landmark
Placement for Localization in a GPS-denied Environment.” In 2018 Annual American Control Conference
(ACC), pp. 2769-2775. IEEE, 2018
[31] Wang, Bingyu, Sohum Misra, Kaarthik Sundar, Sivakumar Rathinam, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Routing
Multiple Unmanned Vehicles in GPS Denied Environments.” In 2018 AIAA Information Systems-AIAA
Infotech@ Aerospace, p. 0897. 2018
[30] Wang, Bingyu, Sivakumar Rathinam, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kaarthik Sundar. “Algorithms for localization
and routing of unmanned vehicles in gps-denied environments.” In ASME 2018 Dynamic Systems and Control
Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Digital Collection, 2018
[29] Chakraborty, Anusna, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin Brink. “Target-Centric Formation Control in GPSdenied
Environments.” In 2018 AIAA Information Systems-AIAA Infotech@ Aerospace, p. 0642. 2018.
[28] Kumar, Rumit, Alireza Nemati, Manish Kumar, Rajnikant Sharma, Kelly Cohen, and Franck Cazaurang.
“Tilting-rotor quadcopter for aggressive flight maneuvers using differential flatness based flight controller.”
In Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, vol. 58295, p. V003T39A006. American Society of Mechanical
Engineers, 2017
[27] Sundar, Kaarthik, Sohum Misra, Sivakumar Rathinam, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Routing unmanned vehicles
in GPS-denied environments.” In 2017 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS),
pp. 62-71. IEEE, 2017
[26] Garber, Mark, Sivakumar Rathinam, and Rajnikant Sharma. “A grid-based path planning approach for a
team of two vehicles with localization constraints.” In 2017 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft
Systems (ICUAS), pp. 516-523. IEEE, 2017.
[25] Lee, Brad Hyeong-Yun, James R. Morrison, and Rajnikant Sharma. “Multi-UAV control testbed for persistent
UAV presence: ROS GPS waypoint tracking package and centralized task allocation capability.” In 2017
International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pp. 1742-1750. IEEE, 2017
[24] Mitchell, Samuel, Imran Sajjad, Ali Al-Hashimi, Soodeh Dadras, Ryan M. Gerdes, and Rajnikant Sharma.
“Visual distance estimation for pure pursuit based platooning with a monocular camera.” In 2017 American
Control Conference (ACC), pp. 2327-2332. IEEE, 2017
[23] Sajjad, Imran, Rajnikant Sharma, and Ryan Gerdes. “A game-theoretic approach and evaluation of adversarial
vehicular platooning.” In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Safe Control of Connected
and Autonomous Vehicles, pp. 35-41. 2017.
[22] Manjunath, Abhishek, Parwinder Mehrok, Rajnikant Sharma, and Ashwini Ratnoo. “Application of virtual
target based guidance laws to path following of a quadrotor uav.” In 2016 International Conference on
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pp. 252-260. IEEE, 2016
[21] Chakraborty, Anusna, Clark N. Taylor, Rajnikant Sharma, and Kevin M. Brink. “Cooperative localization
for fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicles.” In 2016 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium
(PLANS), pp. 106-117. IEEE, 2016.
[20] Rajnikant Sharma, Sivakumar Rathinam “Cooperative-timing Attack with Smart Munitions using Cooperative
Localization in Contested Environments”, AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition 2016.
[19] Thomas Fisher, Rajnikant Sharma, “Rudder Augmented Trajectory Correction for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
to Decrease Lateral Flight Line Errors of Fixed Camera Imagery” AIAA Science and Technology Forum and
Exposition 2016.
[18] Imran Sajjad, Daniel D. Dunn, Rajnikant Sharma and Ryan Gerdes “Attack Mitigation in Adversarial Platooning
Using Detection-Based Sliding Mode Control”, ACM Cyber-Physical Systems Security and Privacy
Workshop 2015.
[17] Jerel Nielsen, Rajnikant Sharma, “Formation Control of Quad-Rotor UAVs Using a Single Camera”, 2015
International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems.
[16] Douglas Spencer Maughan, Ishmaal Timothy Erekson, Rajnikant Sharma “Flying Inverted Pendulum Trajectory
Control on Robust Intelligent Sensing and Control Multi-Agent Analysis Platform”, 2015 International
Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems.
[15] S. Rathinam, R. Sharma, ” A Multiple Vehicle Path Covering Problem with Localization Constraints: Formulation
and Algorithms” 2015 IEEE American Control Conference (ACC) (Accepted)
[14] Rajnikant Sharma, “Observability based Control for Cooperative Localization”, In the proceedings of the
2014 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS’14), 2014.
[13] Rajdeep Dutta, Liang Sun, Mangal Kothari, Rajnikant Sharma, Daniel J. Pack, “A Cooperative Formation
Control Strategy Maintaining Connectivity of A Multi-agent System”, 2014 IEEE/RSJ International
Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2014).
[12] Rajnikant Sharma, Daniel Pack “Cooperative sensor resource management for multi target geolocalization
using small xed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles”, AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and
Exhibit, Boston, 2013.
[11] Hyukseong Kwon, Rajnikant Sharma, Josiah Yoder, Daniel Pack “Robust mobile ground target localization
using ground image feature based UAV position compensation techniques”, 12th International Conference on
Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS 2012), Jeju, Korea, 2012.
[10] Josiah Yoder, Hyukseong Kwon, Rajnikant Sharma, Daniel Pack “Monitoring intent to enter with a small
UAV”, 12th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS 2012), Jeju, Korea, 2012.
[9] Rajnikant Sharma, Randal W. Beard, Clark N. Taylor, Daniel Pack, “Bearing-only cooperative geo-localization
for unmanned aerial vehicles”, American Control Conference, Montreal, Canada, 2012.
[8] Huili Yu, Rajnikant Sharma, Randal W. Beard, “Observability-based local path planning and collision avoidance
for micro air vehicles using bearing-only measurements”, Proceedings of the American Control Conference,
San Francisco, 2011.
[7] Rajnikant Sharma, Clark N. Taylor, David Casbeer, Randal W. Beard, “Distributed cooperative SLAM using
an information consensus lter,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, Toronto,
Canada, paper no. AIAA-2010-8334, 2010.
[6] Rajnikant Sharma, Mangal Kothari, Clark N. Taylor and Ian Postlethwaite, “Cooperative target-capturing
with inaccurate target information”, Proceedings of the American Control Conference, Baltimore MA, p.
5520-5525, 2010.
[5] Rajnikant Sharma, Je Saunders, Clark N. Taylor, Randal W. Beard, “Reactive collision avoidance for fixed
wing MAVs flying in urban terrain”, AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit, 2009
[4] Rajnikant Sharma, Clark N. Taylor, “Vision-based distributed cooperative navigation for MAVs in GPS
denied areas”, AIAA Infotech@Aerospace, 2009.
[3] Rajnikant Sharma, Clark N. Taylor, “Cooperative navigation of MAVs in GPS denied areas”, Proceedings of
the IEEE International Conference on Multisensor Fusion and Integration for Intelligent Systems, p. 481-486,
2008.
[2] Rajnikant Sharma, Debashish Ghose, “Swarm intelligence based collision avoidance between realistically
Modeled UAVs”, Proceedings of the American Control Conference, New York, NY, p. 3892-3897, 2007.
[1] Rajnikant Sharma, Debashish Ghose, “Collision avoidance between UAV clusters using swarm intelligence”,
Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Control and Optimization of Dynamical Systems,
Bangalore, p. 246-253, 2007.