COAR Lab: Pushing the Boundaries of Safe AI, Learning, and Multi-Agent Autonomy
The Control, Optimization, Autonomy & Robotics (COAR) Lab, developed by Dr. Dipankar Maity, is advancing the foundations of safe AI, learning, and multi-agent autonomous decision-making. Its research pushes the scientific boundaries of multi-agent reinforcement learning, strategic and adversarial game theory, and safe and robust autonomous control. A core focus is developing principled algorithms that enable teams of robots and intelligent agents to learn, coordinate, and make decisions under uncertainty, limited communication, and adversarial disturbances. This foundational work—supported by major federal awards including an NSF CAREER Award and multiple DoD grants—is helping position UNC Charlotte as a growing leader in the science of intelligent autonomy.
A major pillar of this vision is the COAR Lab’s collaboration with the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) on tactical team behaviors, deception-aware learning, and decision-making under information asymmetry. Since 2020, ARL has supported the lab’s efforts to understand how autonomous teams reason strategically in adversarial environments, culminating in an ARL researcher embedded directly at UNC Charlotte. Complementary collaborations with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) further extend this impact, enabling COAR Lab research to address mission-critical challenges in defense autonomy. Together, these partnerships allow the lab to deliver both foundational advances and deployable insights for safe, resilient, multi-agent autonomous systems.
A defining contribution to UNC Charlotte’s academic mission is Dr. Maity’s development of Foundations of Reinforcement Learning and Optimal Control, a graduate course that equips students with the rigorous mathematical principles underlying modern AI and learning-enabled autonomous systems. Complementing the department’s application-oriented AI offerings, this course provides a foundations-first understanding of AI—skills that are increasingly essential as AI becomes integral to every engineer’s professional toolkit. By cultivating deep analytical expertise and preparing students to innovate rather than merely applying tools, the course strengthens the university’s talent pipeline and supports the Charlotte region’s growing footprint in autonomous systems and AI-driven technologies.
Dr. Maity’s service to the university and broader research community reinforces UNC Charlotte’s emergence as a hub for robotics, AI, and autonomy. He has organized multiple Learning and Game Theory Workshops, bringing researchers from ARL and AFRL to campus and deepening collaborative efforts on adversarial learning, multi-agent planning, and autonomous decision systems. In addition, the COAR Lab co-initiated and continues to lead the UNC Charlotte Controls and Robotics Seminar Series, which has hosted around 50 national and international speakers from academia, industry, and government laboratories. This seminar series provides a vibrant intellectual forum that connects students, faculty, industry partners, and federal agencies. Through these sustained efforts, the COAR Lab enhances the department’s visibility, enriches scholarly discourse, and strengthens UNC Charlotte’s role in shaping the future of autonomous and intelligent systems.