Nathan T. Depenbusch

Papers

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About

Nathan T. Depenbusch is a leading researcher in autonomous soaring and atmospheric energy harvesting for small unmanned aircraft. His work focuses on developing bio-inspired flight planning and control algorithms that enable robotic aircraft to exploit natural lift sources—such as thermals and gusts—to dramatically extend range and endurance without additional fuel. Depenbusch’s major contributions are documented in his highly cited two-part series on the AutoSOAR system, which demonstrates a complete autonomous soaring architecture: part one details the core autonomy algorithms that build dynamic maps of thermal lift and optimize flight paths in real time, while part two validates these algorithms through successful flight test campaigns. His earlier research on gust soaring introduced receding-horizon control strategies for harvesting energy from stochastic atmospheric phenomena, a concept inspired by bird flight. With over 80 combined citations for his most influential papers, Depenbusch’s work has established foundational methods for persistent, energy-neutral flight in small robotic aircraft—paving the way for long-duration environmental monitoring, surveillance, and exploration missions.