Dr.
Xiaobo Tan Lab director
E-mail: xbtan@egr.msu.edu
Phone: (517)432-5671
Fax: (517)353-1980
Freddie Alequin
Ph.D. student
Freddie received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Purto Rico, Mayaguez, in December 2007. He was an engineering at Texas Instruments before joining SML as a Ph.D. student in August 2008. His current research interest is in the development of highly maneuverable and efficient robotic fish.
Mohamed Edardar
(Principal advisor: Dr. Hassan Khalil)
Ph.D. student
Mohamed received his B.S. in electrical engineering from Al-Fateh University, Libya, in 1991, and his M.S. from UPM, Malaysia, in 1999. He was a field engineer for Schlumberger from 1991 to 1996, and was with the High Institute of Electronic Professions from 1999 to 2004. He joined Al-Fateh University as an academic staff in 2005, and then .joined MSU as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2008. He is currently investigating control of smart material-actuated systems with application to nanopositioning.
Alex
Esbrook (Co-adviser: Dr. Hassan Khalil)
Ph.D. student and lab manager
Alex received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from MSU in December 2008. He was a research intern with SML in summer'08 and an undergraduate research assistant in Fall 2008. Since January 2009, he has been a Ph.D. student working on control of smart material-actuated systems.
Hong
Lei
Ph.D. student
Hong received his Bachelor's degree in Technology and Apparatus for Measurement and Control and Master's degree in Testing and Measurement Technology and Instrument in 2006, 2009, respectively, from Beihang University, Beijing, China. He joined SML as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2009. His research is focused on micro sensors and actuators based on ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) materials.
Jianxun
Wang
Ph.D. student
Jianxun received his Bachelor's degree in Automation Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2009. He joined SML as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2009. He is focused on the development of energy-efficient, autonomous robotic fish.
Feitian
Zhang
Ph.D. student
Feitian received his Bachelor's degree in Automation Engineering and Master's degree in Control Science and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2007 and 2009, respectively. He joined SML as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2009. His current research topic is computational and experimental modeling of robotic fish.
Dawn
Hedgepeth
M. S. student
Dawn received her B.S. from Morgan State University in December 2006. She was a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin before she joined Michigan State University as a graduate student in Fall 2007. Her research is focused on modeling and design of electroactive polymer-based biomimetic robots.
Mike
Carpenter
Mike is pursuing his B. S. in Computer Engineering at MSU. He was a summer research intern in SML during Summer'09 and has been an undergrad research assistant since. He is working on design of robotic fish and modeling of their turning behaviors.
Tom
Ganley
Tom is pursuing his B. S. in Electrical Engineering at MSU. He was a summer research intern in SML during Summer'09 and has been an undergrad research assistant since. He is investigating the behavior of ionic polymer-metal composite sensors and their potential applications in automotive industry.
Matt
Guibord
Matt is pursuing his B. S. in Electrical Engineering at MSU. He was a summer research intern in SML during Summer'09 and has been an undergrad research assistant since. He is investigating the modeling and control of a nanopositioning stage.
John
Thon
Mr. Thon is a technology teacher at Holt Junior High School. He has been a K-12 Outreach Coordinator for MSU College of Engineering since 2006. Starting Summer'08, he has been an NSF-sponsored RET (Research Experience for Teachers) teacher in SML. In close collaboration with other SML researchers, he performs research on body and packaging solutions for biomimetic robotic fish, and develops curriculum material for students at school based on the robotic fish project.
Cody
Thon
Cody is a student at Holt High School. He has become a part-time research assistant in SML since September 2009. His research topic is robotic fish development.
A NOTE TO SML ALUMNI: please keep us updated on your achievements and contact information by sending emails to xbtan@msu.edu. We would like to hear how you are doing.
Alumni - Postdoctoral Researchers
Mart
Anton
Dr.
Anton received his Ph.D. from Tartu University, Estonia in 2008. He was a postdoc
in SML from August 2008 to June 2009. His research was focused on computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of biomimetic robotic fish. Dr. Anton also visited
SML during October-November 2007 when he was a PhD student working on the modeling of ionic polymer-metal composite actuators.
Dr. Anton is currently with the Center of Biorobotics at Tallinn University of
Technology, Estonia.
Alumni - Graduate Students
Zheng Chen
Zheng
received his B.S.
and M.S. degrees in automatic control from Zhejiang University in 1999 and 2002,
respectively. He received his PhD degree in electrical engineering from Michigan
State in August 2009. His Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Ionic
Polymer-Metal Composite Artificial Muscles and Sensors: A Control Systems
Perspective. Zheng was the recipient of a Summer Dissertation Fellowship
in 2005 and a Dissertation Completion Fellowship in 2009, both from MSU
Graduate School. He also received an Honorable Mention for the Fitch Beach
Outstanding Graduate Research Award from MSU College of Engineering in 2008.
Yang Fang
Yang received his Bachelor's degree in Automation from University of Science and Technology of China in 2003, and his M.S. degree in Manufacturing System and Technology (Singapore - MIT Alliance Program) from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2005. He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Michigan State in August 2009. His Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Conjugated Polymer Actuators and Sensors: Modeling, Control, and Applications. Yang received the 2008 ASME/DSCD Best Mechatronics Paper Award for the paper "Design and modeling of a petal-shape, conjugated polymer-actuated micropump", presented at the 2008 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference. Yang is currently with Southwest Research Institute.
Jeff Ahrens
Jeff received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Michigan State in December 2006. Jeff's dissertation Design and Performance Tradeoffs of High-Gain Observers with Application to Smart Material Actuated Systems, was jointly supervised by Prof. Hassan K. Khalil (principal advisor) and Prof. Tan. Jeff is currently with the Sullivan Park Research Center of Corning Incorporated.
Nathan Usher
Nathan received his M. S. degree in August 2007. Nathan's Master's thesis Digital Low-Level Radio Frequency Control and Microphonics Mitigation of Superconducting Cavities focused on the development of embedded control algorithms and their hardware/software implementations in a DSP/FPGA combo board. Nathan is currently an RF engineer at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at MSU.
Stephan
Shatara
Stephan received his
B.S. and M.S., both in electrical engineering, from MSU in May 2006 and
December 2008, respectively. His M.S. thesis was entitled Development of Small Biomimetic Robotic Fish with Onboard Fine-Grained
Localization. Stephan is currently with Motorola.
Alumni - Undergraduate Students
Chris
Gliniecki
Chris received his B. S. in Electrical Engineering from MSU in December 2008. He worked in SML as a research intern in Summer'08. His research project dealt with designing the body of robotic fish and equipping the fish with a wireless camera.
Omar
Bennani
Omar received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from MSU in December 2007. He was an undergraduate research assistant of SML from January 2006 to December 2007. Omar investigated embedded control of smart material actuators. He is currently employed by Caterpillar.
Andrew Temme
Andrew started to work as an undergraduate research assistant in SML in Fall 2006 (his freshman year). He left the lab in pursuing his interest in electromagnetics in May 2008. During his tenure with SML, Andrew was involved in the study of electroactive polymer sensors and sensors for robotic fish.
Ki-Yong Kwon
Ki-Yong received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from MSU in December 2007 and has been pursuing graduate studies at MSU since then. He started research in SML in Fall 2006, and was an undergraduate research assistant in 2007. He worked on the development of electroactive polymer-based tetrahedral walker as well as integrated sensing methods for ionic polymer metal composites.
Nate Gingery
Nate received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from MSU in December 2007. He was a summer research intern at SML during Summer 2007. Nate worked on the navigation and localization issues of electroactive polymer-actuated robotic fish. Nate is currently an officer in Navy.
Jason
Malinak
Jason received his B.S. (in honors) in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University in December 2005. He conducted research on integrated sensing and actuation for electroactive polymers in SML from Summer 2005 through March 2006, when he joined Argon ST as an engineer. Jason joined University of Pittsburg as a graduate student in Fall 2007. He is currently a vehicle research engineer at Honda R & D.
Christopher Ziel
Chris received his B. S. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University in December 2005. He was an SML member from Summer 2005 through March 2006. He designed and developed an apparatus for investigation of sensing behaviors of electroactive polymers. After graduation, Chris first joined BAE Systems as a product test engineer, and then joined USSI as an electrical design engineer.
Bryan
Thomas
Bryan was an undergraduate researcher in SML during Fall 2006 and Spring 2007. He worked closely with Stephan on the development of onboard localization, navigation, and control methods for electroactive polymer-actuated robotic fish.
Daniel Laboy
Dan was pursuing a major in Computer Engineering with a minor in International Relations. He was a Professorial Assistant to Dr. Tan and then as an undergraduate research assistant until December 2006. He was involved in the development of artificial muscle-based biomimetic robotic fish. Other than his academic interests, he enjoys watching and playing soccer.
Roy Dong
Roy was a Professorial Assistant of Dr. Tan during Fall 2006 and Spring 2007 (his freshman year). Roy was involved in the development of an educational kit based on electroactive polymer-actuated robotic fish.
Alumni - Visiting Scholars
Qingsong Hu
Qingsong was a PhD student from Tongji University, Shanghai. He was a visiting scholar at Michigan State University from October 2007 to October 2008. He spent part of his time in SML, working on the modeling of turning behaviors for electroactive polymer-based robotic fish.
Andres Hunt
Andres was an exchange student from Tartu University, Estonia. From February to July 2008, he conducted research on self-sensing artificial muscles in SML, as part of his Master's thesis.
Stephan
Henneberger
Stephan was an exchange student from University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. From August 2007 to February 2008, he pursued research in SML on onboard processing algorithms for autonomous robotic fish. His study thesis was entitled A Sliding Discrete Fourier Transform (SDFT)-based Localization for Small Fish Robots.
Ernest Mbemmo
Ernest was an exchange student from University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. From February through September 2007, Ernest performed his Master's thesis research in SML. His thesis was entitled Design and Modeling of Biomimetic Robotic Fish Propelled by an IPMC. Ernest is current an application engineer at INVENSYS, Germany.
Alex Will
Alex was an exchange student from Industrial Engineering and Management at University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. From May through October 2006, he worked in SML on a research project dealing with characterization and modeling of the sensing behavior of an Electro-active Polymer (IPMC). After finishing his study thesis, entitled Dynamic Sensing Model for Ionic Polymer Metal Composites, he returned to Kaiserslautern and finished his studies with the German Diploma Degree. Besides studying, Alex enjoys outdoor sports, traveling and meeting people.