Hi Everyone, I’m Tushar!

I am an Aerospace Engineering Masters student at Iowa State University. My enduring curiosity for Control Systems led me to major in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at BITS Pilani. Digging deep into its multifaceted aspects throughout my undergraduate journey, I’ve identified my interest in advancing control theory for nonlinear dynamical systems such as robots and spacecraft. Starting in the Fall of 2024, I’ve been a Research Assist under Professor Abhishek Halder, where I’ve been conducting research at the intersection of Stochastic Systems, Dynamics & Control, and Optimization.

Apart from this, I also keep a keen interest in Electric vehicles. My hobbies include playing the keyboard, cricket and badminton, running, and cycling.

Research Experience

Halder Group (Stochastic Control & Optimization) (August 2024 – Present)

I’m researching the intersection of Stochastic Systems, Dynamics & Control, and Optimization under Professor Abhishek Halder. The current project that I’m working on involves designing an Optimal Covariance Steering Algorithm for a Stochastic System over a finite time horizon. The earlier works focused on generalizing the Schrodinger Bridge Problem (SBP) with a hard constraint on the final marginal distribution, which finds the most likely stochastic evolution between two probability distributions at two distinct points in time. My current focus is developing a framework incorporating a soft constraint (Frobenius terminal cost) and a quadratic cost function for control input and state. I aim to derive the necessary conditions for optimality for this problem and establish sufficiency. This modification will improve system performance and computational efficiency by optimizing control efforts and the desired system states.

Guidance, Control & Decision Systems Lab (GCDSL) (June 2022 – June 2023)

With a growing debris population in the lower Earth orbit, robots performing routine tasks autonomously (such as simple repairs/maintenance, refueling, or debris removal) may become increasingly essential for actively preventing disaster. Several missions to uncooperative targets will require Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D) operations. I interned in the Aerospace Department at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, under the guidance of Professor Debasish Ghose, where I developed control algorithms for AR&D of spacecraft with non-cooperative tumbling satellites.

Professional Experience

HDFC Bank (July 2023 – July 2024)

I worked as a DevSecOps (Development, Security, & Operations) Engineer at the Digital Factory Vertical of the IT Team at HDFC Bank, Bengaluru. My primary tasks involved designing, maintaining & securing CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, Git, Kubernetes, and Docker. In addition to this, I was also tasked with implementing infrastructure-as-code (IAC) principles using tools like Terraform and Ansible, ensuring secure and compliant cloud environments.