James Ragan

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

James Ragan is a rising researcher at the forefront of autonomous systems, with a focus on fault-tolerant control, active sensing, and cyber-physical security for spacecraft and robotics. His work addresses critical challenges in enabling robots to operate safely under uncertainty and adversarial conditions. Ragan’s most cited paper, “Online tree-based planning for active spacecraft fault estimation and collision avoidance” (2024, 10 citations), pioneers a method for autonomous vehicles to simultaneously identify component failures and avoid collisions in real time—a breakthrough for missions in hazardous environments. He further advances this theme in “Bayesian Active Sensing for Fault Estimation with Belief Space Tree Search” (2023), where he integrates probabilistic reasoning with tree-search planning to isolate sensor and actuator faults. On the security front, his paper “Robust Optimal Network Topology Switching for Zero Dynamics Attacks” (2024) tackles stealthy cyber-attacks that exploit system dynamics, proposing a topology-switching defense to neutralize threats. With a growing citation impact and a portfolio spanning estimation, planning, and security, Ragan is shaping the next generation of resilient, intelligent autonomous systems for aerospace and beyond.