Kasdin
N. Jeremy Kasdin, Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Ph.D. Stanford University (1991)
Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Profile
Professor Kasdin's interests are in space systems design, orbital mechanics, guidance and control of space vehicles, optimal estimation, and stochastic process modeling. He is currently the Principal Investigator for the Princeton Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) group. This is an interdepartmental group of faculty, staff, and graduate students from MAE, Astrophysics, the Institute for Advanced Study, and other departments that is working with Ball Aerospace on design studies for NASA's TPF mission. TPF will be a large space based observatory to detect and characterize earthlike planets in the habitable zone of nearby stars. The Princeton group is working on optical design, laboratory verification, wavefront control, systems engineering, trajectory analysis and scientific characterization, among other areas.
Professor Kasdin has also done research in nonlinear techniques for optimal state estimation in the presence of noise and other stochastic processes. He developed a new method for estimation known as the two-step estimator. These techniques are being applied to problems in satellite attitude estimation, reentry vehicles, missile guidance, and underwater vehicles. He also has research interests in stochastic modeling and simulation.
Selected Publications
[1] A. Give’on, R. Belikov, S. Shaklan, and J. Kasdin. Closed loop, dm diversity-based, wavefront correction algorithm for high contrast imaging systems. Optics Express, 15(19), 17 September 2007.
[2] L. Pueyo and N. J. Kasdin. Polychromatic compensation of propagated aberrations for high-contrast imaging. The Astrophysical Journal, 666:609–625, Sep 2007.
[3] R.J. Vanderbei, E. Cady, and N.J. Kasdin. Optimal occulter design for finding extrasolar planets.
Astrophysical Journal, 665(1):794–798, 2007.
[4] N. J. Kasdin, R. J. Vanderbei, and R. Belikov. Shaped pupil coronagraphy. C. R. Physique, 8:312–322, 2007.
[5] M. Wikelski, R. Kays, N. J. Kasdin, K. Thorup, J. A. Smith, W. W. Cochran, and Jr. G. W. Swenson.
Going wild: What a global small-animal tracking system could do for experimental biologists. The
Journal of Experimental Biology, 210, December 2006.