Gustavo A. Cardona

Short Bio

Gustavo A. Cardona received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and the M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia, and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA, in 2025. His Ph.D. thesis focused on developing formal methods for scalable and robust planning in multi-robot systems, leveraging temporal logic and optimization to handle partial satisfaction of complex tasks under uncertainty. His work was recognized with the 2025 Outstanding Dissertation-Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics and the 2025 Elizabeth V. Stout Dissertation Award from the Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. He has also held a research internship at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in 2024, where he worked on multi-truck coordination in warehouse environments. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA, working on human-humanoid interaction. His research interests include formal methods, control theory, human-robot interaction, and machine learning.

Research Interests

My research aims to enable specification-driven autonomy for multi-robot systems that interact with people. I automate synthesis and decision-making by integrating temporal logic–based formal methods, optimization, machine learning, and physically aware control. I explicitly account for uncertainty, scalability, and partial satisfaction when goals conflict or constraints are violated. I design algorithms for reliable human–robot interaction and multi-robot coordination that connect high-level specifications to low-level controllers, enabling the planning, explanation, and safe execution of complex missions. I validate these methods on real platforms, including quadrotors, ground robots, and humanoids. multi-agent systems, motion planning, and optimization-based control for autonomous robotic teams.