Vishal R. Yalla

Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering @ California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Broadly speaking, my work is at the intersection of aerial intelligence and space robotics, where my current research is focused on generalizing aerial autonomy.

I’m a researcher @ Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST) at Caltech under the Mory Gharib Research Group, where my research is centered on Symbolic Robotics & Reasoning Algorithms for aerial vehicles. My current work also extends to Visual & Semantic Robotic Perception, Navigation, and Control as applied to aerial flight.

I’m also @ NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with the Aerial Robotic Systems (358M) group. I currently work on the GNC (Guidance, Navigation & Control) and Navigation team for Skyfall Mars Helicopter. Previously at JPL, I worked on the Science Data System & Operations for NISAR, NASA's flagship Earth Science mission. I also work on supporting early-stage mission formulation & concept development efforts under JPL’s Systems Engineering & Spacecraft Project Formulation Division.

Previously, I was @ the Keck Institute for Space Studies [KISS] (Caltech & JPL’s think-and-do tank), and the Space Structures Lab @ Caltech. Before this, I was a researcher at the University of Washington in the Control & Trustworthy Robotics Lab (CTRL) / Autonomous Flight Systems Lab (AFSL), Autonomous Controls Laboratory, and Husky Satellite Lab, among others.

In the space sciences, my research was centered on multi-messenger astrophysics. I was a research engineer @ LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) for 4 years; I've also worked at the Green Bank Observatory, the NANOGrav Collaboration, and the CERN Elementary Particle Physics Experiment (EPE) Group on the ATLAS Experiment.