Dr. Vu Phi Tran, known professionally as Dr. Phi Tran, serves as a Research Associate in the School of Engineering and Technology at UNSW Canberra, University of New South Wales. He obtained his B.E. degree in Automation and Control Engineering from the HCMC University of Technology and Education, Saigon, Vietnam, in 2010; his M.S. degree in Mechatronics Engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand, in 2015; and his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia, in 2019. His research specializations encompass adaptive and robust control, non-linear control systems, consensus and formation control, neural networks, fuzzy systems, UAV systems, and robotics. Tran has made significant contributions to multi-agent systems, swarm robotics, and advanced control strategies for unmanned aerial vehicles in uncertain environments.

Prior to his current appointment, Tran was a Lecturer in the Department of Automation and Control Engineering at the HCMC University of Technology and Education from 2010 to 2012. Since 2020, he has worked as a Research Assistant, Teaching Staff, and Casual Professional staff at UNSW Canberra. Among his notable awards are the Rockwell Automation Scholarship for maintaining high standards of quality, service, and engineering excellence; the Hisamatsu Prize for the most outstanding academic performance in Mechatronics at the Asian Institute of Technology; the UNSW Tuition Fee Scholarship; the Dean’s Award for Outstanding PhD Theses, recognizing the top 10% of Ph.D. theses examined; and the T.F.C. Lawrence Prize for the best performance by a graduating research student in Aeronautical Science. Key publications include 'Reinforcement learning for end-to-end UAV slung-load navigation and obstacle avoidance' in Scientific Reports (2025), 'Active Sensing Strategy: Multi-Modal, Multi-Robot Source Localization and Mapping in Real-World Settings With Fixed One-Way Switching' in Journal of Field Robotics (2025), 'Robust Adaptive Fuzzy Control for Second-Order Euler-Lagrange Systems With Uncertainties and Disturbances via Nonlinear Negative-Imaginary Systems Theory' in IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (2024), 'Collaborative gas source localization strategy with networked nano-drones in unknown cluttered environments' in Swarm and Evolutionary Computation (2024), 'Multi-gas source localization and mapping by flocking robots' in Information Fusion (2023), 'Dynamic Frontier-Led Swarming: Multi-Robot Repeated Coverage in Dynamic Environments' in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica (2023), and 'Switching time-invariant formation control of a collaborative multi-agent system using negative imaginary systems theory' in Control Engineering Practice (2020). These works highlight his influence in the fields of control engineering and robotics.