Yashwanth Kumar Nakka
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Papers
14
Total Citations
299
H-Index
9
About
Yashwanth Kumar Nakka is a robotics and aerospace researcher whose work spans autonomous space systems, motion planning under uncertainty, and robotic exploration of extreme environments. He has made significant contributions to the field of multi-spacecraft autonomy, most notably through his development of guidance and control architectures for on-orbit inspection missions and autonomous satellite assembly from heterogeneous swarms — papers that have collectively garnered nearly 100 citations. His trajectory optimization research, particularly his generalized polynomial chaos-based sequential convex programming framework for chance-constrained stochastic systems, has advanced the state of the art in motion planning for robots operating under real-world uncertainty, accumulating over 50 citations across related works. Nakka has also played a central role in NASA's EELS project, developing an autonomous snake-like robot designed for ice world exploration — including potential missions to Enceladus — which has already attracted 62 citations since its 2024 publication. His contributions extend to lunar multi-agent autonomy through the CADRE mission and electromagnetic docking technologies for satellite assembly. With over 280 total citations, Nakka's research is shaping the future of autonomous robotic exploration beyond Earth.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Autonomous in-orbit satellite assembly from a modular heterogeneous swarm54 citations · 2020
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- 7Trajectory Optimization for Chance-Constrained Nonlinear Stochastic Systems17 citations · 2019
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- 9Ultra-Soft Electromagnetic Docking with Applications to In-Orbit Assembly12 citations · 2018
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