Research Interests

• Control theory and optimization 

• Dynamical systems and control, robotics

• Formal verification

Publications

• John L. Bullock, Lin Song, Gokul Puthumanaillam, Yangge Li, Sheng Cheng, Melkior Ornik, Sayan Mitra and Naira Hovakimyan, ''Verification of a Collision Avoidance Controller for a Lift + Cruise Vehicle", 2025 AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech Forum), 2025 [Paper]

• Lin Song, "Certifiable control and verification for safety assurance in cyber-physical systems", Ph.D. dissertation, April 2024.

• Sheng Cheng, Minkyung Kim*, Lin Song*, Chengyu Yang, Yiquan Jin, Shenlong Wang, and Naira Hovakimyan, ''Difftune: Auto-tuning through auto-differentiation", IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2024 [Paper][Video]

• Lin Song, David Isele, Naira Hovakimyan, and Sangjae Bae, "Efficient and Interaction-Aware Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Vehicles with Particle Swarm Optimization", in proceedings of 35th IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) (IEEE IV 2024), 2024 [Paper]

• Lin Song, Sheng Cheng, Sayan Mitra, and Naira Hovakimyan, "Verification of Design Specifications in L1 Adaptive Control", 2024 AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech Forum), 2024 [Paper]

• Lin Song, Yangge Li, Sheng Cheng, Pan Zhao, Sayan Mitra, and Naira Hovakimyan, "Verification of L1 Adaptive Control using Verse Library: A Case Study of Quadrotors", 13th IEEE International Conference on Cyber Physical Systems (ICCPS), 2023 [Paper]

• Lin Song, Pan Zhao, Neng Wan, and Naira Hovakimyan, "Safety Embedded Stochastic Optimal Control of Networked Multi-Agent Systems via Barrier States'', 2023 American Control Conference (ACC), 2023 [Paper]

• Lin Song, Neng Wan, and Naira Hovakimyan, "Safe Optimal Control with Synthesized Waypoints as Guidance", 2023 AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech Forum), 2023 [Paper]

• Sheng Cheng, Lin Song, Minkyung Kim, Shenlong Wang, and Naira Hovakimyan, ''DiffTune+: Hyper-parameter-Free Auto-Tuning using Auto-Differentiation'', the 5th Learning for Dynamics and Control (L4DC) Conference (Oral Presentation, top 10%), 2023 [Paper]

• Neng Wan, Dapeng Li, Lin Song, and Naira Hovakimyan, ''Simplified Analysis on Filtering Sensitivity Trade-offs in Continuous-and Discrete-Time Systems'', IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2023 [Paper]

• Lin Song, Neng Wan, Aditya Gahlawat, Chuyuan Tao, Naira Hovakimyan, and Evangelos A. Theodorou, ''Generalization of Safe Optimal Control Actions on Networked Multi-Agent Systems'',  IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, 2022 [Paper]

• Lin Song, Neng Wan, Aditya Gahlawat, Naira Hovakimyan, and Evangelos A. Theodorou, ''Compositionality of Linearly Solvable Optimal Control in Networked Multi-Agent Systems", 2021 American Control Conference (ACC), 2021 [Paper]

• Aditya Gahlawat, Arun Lakshmanan, Lin Song, Andrew Patterson, Zhuohuan Wu, Naira Hovakimyan, and Evangelos A. Theodorou, ''Contraction-L1: Adaptive Control using Gaussian Processes", the 3rd Learning for Dynamics and Control (L4DC) Conference, 2021 [Paper] 

• Ozan Tonguz, Rusheng Zhang, Lin Song, and Adhishree Jaiprakash, ''System and Method Implementing Virtual Pedestrian Traffic Lights'', U.S. Patent Application 17/752,952, Sep 2022 [URL]

• Rusheng Zhang, Lin Song, Adhishree Jaiprakash, Timothy Talty, Ammar Alanazi, Abdullah Alghafis, A Ahmed Biyabani, and Ozan Tonguz, "Using Ultra-Wideband Technology in Vehicles for Infrastructure-Free Localization", IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT), 2019 [Paper]

Workshop papers

• Lin Song, Sheng Cheng, and Naira Hovakimyan, "Meta-Learning-Inspired Control Auto-Tuning with Verified Robustness," presented at IROS Workshop on Formal Methods and Techniques in Robotic Systems: Design and Control, 2023 [URL]

• Sheng Cheng, Minkyung Kim, Lin Song, Zhuohuan Wu, Shenlong Wang, and Naira Hovakimyan, "An Auto-Tuning Framework for Controllers using Auto-Differentiation," presented at CoRL Workshop on Learning to Adapt and Improve in the Real World (RoboAdapt), 2022 [URL]

Awards & Honors

• Yee Memorial Fellowship in 2023 (5 awardees from UIUC College of Engineering per year)

• Student Travel Award for ACC 2023

• Outstanding graduate of Harbin Institute of Technology of 2017

Professional Services

Journal Reviewer

• IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (TAC) 

• IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems (TCNS)

• IEEE Control Systems Letters (L-CSS)

• Annual Reviews in Control

• AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (JGCD)

• Nonlinear Dynamics

Conference Reviewer

• AIAA SciTech 2026, ICRA 2025, IV 2024, ICRA 2024, IROS 2023, CDC 2023, CVPR Agriculture-Vision Workshop 2023

Community Services

• Program Committee (PC) member for the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS): Poster/Demo Session, 2024

• Session chair of "Enabling Technologies for AAM Autonomy" at AIAA SciTech, 2024

• The Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP) mentor in UIUC, 2023

• Graduate student judge for Undergraduate Research Symposium (URS) in UIUC, 2023, 2024

• Student volunteer for the 58th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2022