Dr. Vachtsevanos directs the Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory at Georgia Tech where faculty and students are conducting interdisciplinary research in intelligent control, fault diagnosis and failure prognosis of complex dynamical systems with emphasis on rotorcraft, and hierarchical/intelligent control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. His work in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles dates back to 1994 with major projects funded by the U.S. Army and DARPA. He has served as the Co-PI for DARPA's Software Enabled Control program over the past six years and directed the development and flight testing of novel fault-tolerant control algorithms for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. He is currently representing Georgia Tech at DARPA's HURT program where multiple UAVs are performing surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking missions in an urban environment. Under Army Research Office sponsorship, his research team is developing game theoretic notions for adversarial reasoning.

His research in fault diagnosis and prognosis for Condition Based Maintenance began in 1984 with innovative fault detection and control technologies for the space station program. Under Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsorship, he developed fault detection and fault-tolerant control systems for a turbojet engine. Jointly with Honeywell, he designed diagnostic and prognostic algorithms for shipboard machinery under ONR sponsorship. More recently, he has been an active participant in DARPA's Prognosis Program, the Aging Aircraft Program, an Advanced Diagnostics Program for U.S. Army vehicles, a U.S. Navy program on Prognostic Enhancements to Diagnostic Systems, an Air Force Space Command Program for CBM Design of Ground Satellite Stations, and other industrial programs. He administers at Georgia Tech and on-site an intensive 4-day short course on "Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis for Engineering Systems." He has published over 250 technical papers and is the recipient of the 2002-2003 Georgia Tech School of ECE Distinguished Professor Award and the 2003-2004 Georgia Institute of Technology Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award. He is the lead author of the book, Intelligent Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis for Engineering Systems, published by Wiley in 2006.