Current Position

H. Clifford and Evelyn A. Brosey Chair Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering
Concurrent Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Concurrent Professor, Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics

Education

Ph.D, Electrical Engineering, Brown University
M.S., Electrical Engineering, Brown University
B.S., University of Notre Dame

Research Interests

The Antsaklis research group focuses on Cyber Physical Networked Embedded Systems and addresses problems in the interdisciplinary research area of Control, Computing and Communication Networks, and on Hybrid and Discrete Event Dynamical Systems. It addresses problems of control and automation and examines ways to design engineering systems that will exhibit high degree of autonomy in performing useful tasks. Application areas include transportation, manufacturing, and chemical process systems, as well as computer and communication networks. The group's work includes analysis of behavior based on mathematical models and design of control strategies for complex autonomous, intelligent, learning and reconfigurable systems.

Research Highlights and Personal Reflections: First, a few words about my research vision and the way I work, so to make clearer (especially to future PhD students) the reasons for having selected the specific areas of research described below. I work closely with students in research and I allow significant freedom in the selection of PhD research topics. I encourage individuality and excellence, and I expect love of the subject, enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity. I think the Systems and Controls area is a truly great research area and I expect my students to feel the same way. I try to be responsive to future application needs, as in my opinion this is where a University should be conducting its research, keeping an eye down the road, and focusing primarily on defining and articulating new methods and solving new problems in novel ways, without excluding of course extending a helping hand if requested by industry practitioners. The concern for addressing effectively future research needs in applications has led me to move onto novel research areas with my group and play leading roles in those areas. In the late 80s my group helped establish Autonomous Intelligent Control in the mainstream control research community; in the early 90s, we introduced Supervisory Control of Discrete Event Systems (DES) using Petri nets; in the mid-90s we helped establish Hybrid Control Systems and influenced its research directions; more recently we are involved in Networked Control Systems, in the Distributed Control of Multi-Agent Systems and in Cyber-Physical Systems research. Recent funded projects include methods to design Cyber-Physical Systems based on passivity, and Supervisory Control of Discrete Event Systems using Petri Nets to derive methods for concurrent programming.

Key Words

Building and Energy Consumption, Electric Cars, Electricity and Smart Grid Technology, Energy Efficiency and Consumption

Relevant Energy Publications

1. Rahnama, Arash, Meng Xia, and Panos J. Antsaklis. "A QSR-dissipativity based design for event-triggered networked systems." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 64, no. 6 (2018): 2590-2597.
2. Ghanbari, Vahideh, Victor H. Duenas, Panos J. Antsaklis, and Warren E. Dixon. "Passivity-based iterative learning control for cycling induced by functional electrical stimulation with electric motor assistance." IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology 27, no. 5 (2018): 2287-2294.
3. Xia, Meng, Arash Rahnama, Shige Wang, and Panos J. Antsaklis. "Control design using passivation for stability and performance." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 63, no. 9 (2018): 2987-2993.
4. Rahnama, Arash, Meng Xia, and Panos J. Antsaklis. "Passivity-based design for event-triggered networked control systems." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 63, no. 9 (2017): 2755-2770.
5. Yu, Na, Saran Salakij, Rafael Chavez, Samuel Paolucci, Mihir Sen, and Panos Antsaklis. "Model-based predictive control for building energy management: Part II–Experimental validations." Energy and Buildings 146 (2017): 19-26.

Department Website
Group Website