Interests

Alternative energy and distributed generation

Develop models of power systems to study the effects of increasing the amount of distributed generation.

Characterize alternative energy sources and assess their impact as a larger number of them are integrated into the power system. Effects at both the distribution- and transmission-level are of interest as are techniques for coordinating and controlling their behavior.

Electric power systems

Develop methodologies based upon dynamic systems and control theory for application to electric power systems. Primary areas of interest are in characterizing effects of control devices across the network and estimating unknown information (e.g., load composition and equipment failures) using available measurements.

Engineering education

Inertial navigation systems

Develop approaches to determine position and orientation of bodies (people or vehicles) in environments where GPS is degraded or unavailable. The approaches are based upon constraints such as those imposed by multiple, rigidly-connected inertial measurement units and the bodies' dynamics.

Mobile robots and robotic manipulators

Develop mobile robots capable of navigating through rugged, unstructured environments out of an operator's line-of-sight. Applications of interest include surveillance, and land-mine detection and remediation.

Develop control strategies for robotic manipulators that provide desirable accuracy and stability properties.

Nonlinear and adaptive control

Develop techniques for controlling nonlinear systems in the presence of uncertainty regarding model and environment. Adaptive control compensates for disturbances and uncertainty, and continually improves performance.