Masahiro (Hiro) Ono

Associate Professor
Office Building
Guggenheim
Office Room Number
341
Biography
Dr. Masahiro (Hiro) Ono is an Associate Professor at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech and Director of the Planetary Robotics Lab (PRL). Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he spent 13 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he developed autonomous navigation algorithms for the Perseverance Mars rover, led the development of EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor)—a snake-like robot designed to explore the potentially habitable subsurface ocean of Enceladus—and led multiple research initiatives in AI and robotics. He also served as Supervisor of JPL’s Robotic Surface Mobility Group and as a rover operator for Perseverance. Before JPL, he was on the faculty at Keio University in Japan. Dr. Ono is also the author of three books for young readers, and a father of a rebellious princess and a mischievous munchkin.

 
Teaching Interests

Dr. Ono's teaching interests include planetary and space robotics, space systems, and the application of AI/ML, control, and planning for space systems.

Research Interests

Dr. Ono is broadly interested in robotics and AI technologies for enabling humanity to boldly go where no robots have gone before. Of particular interest are robotic horizontal and vertical locomotion for icy surfaces; extreme-terrain mobility on planetary surface and subsurface; incorporation of foundational AI into planetary robotic systems; risk-aware decision making; and technology demonstration missions on the Moon. 

Research

Lab

Planetary Robotics Lab

Education
  • B.S., Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Tokyo, 2005;
  • M.S., Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007;
  • M.S., Technology and Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012
  • Ph.D., Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012.

 
Distinctions & Awards
  • NASA Software of the Year Award (Honorable Mention) - 2020; 
  • NASA Honors Awards - 2015, 2016, 2024; 
  • JPL Explorer Award - 2020; JPL Voyager Awards - 2015, 2016, 2016; 
  • NIAC Fellow - 2014; 
  • Best Student Paper Award (American Control Conference) - 2012. 
Recent Publications
  1. Ono, M., Selva, D., Cable, M., Chung, S. J., Choukroun, M., Freeman, A., ... & Rieber, R. (2026). Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for SoftwareDefined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems. In ASCEND 2026 (p. 3012). - 
  2. Toupet, O., Ono, M., Del Sesto, T., Maimone, M., & McHenry, M. (2025). Enhanced Autonomous Navigation on the Perseverance Mars Rover. IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics.  
  3. Vaquero, T. S., Daddi, G., Thakker, R., Paton, M., Jasour, A., Strub, M. P., ... & Ono, M. (2024). EELS: Autonomous snake-like robot with task and motion planning capabilities for ice world exploration. Science Robotics, 9(88), eadh8332.  
  4. Atha, D., Swan, R. M., Cauligi, A., Bettens, A., Goh, E., Kogan, D., ... & Ono, M. (2024). Shadownav: Autonomous global localization for lunar navigation in darkness. IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics, 1, 213-230. 
  5. Daftry, S., Abcouwer, N., Del Sesto, T., Venkatraman, S., Song, J., Igel, L., ... & Ono, M. (2022). MLNav: Learning to safely navigate on Martian terrains. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7(2), 5461-5468.