Affiliations

P. S. Krishnaprasad is also a faculty member of the Program in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, and Scientific Computation, and the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. Since 1987 he has led the Intelligent Servosystems Laboratory.

Research Interests (past and continuing)

Geometric control theory and filtering theory; control of infinite dimensional systems; system identification and model reduction; geometric mechanics; dynamics of nonholonomic systems with symmetries; dynamical systems on Lie groups and optimal trajectory generation

Control problems arising in complex multi-body systems (e.g. spacecraft with deformable elastic attachments and fluid filled containers, underwater vehicles)

Problems of modeling, design, motion planning and control, arising in mobile robotics and robotic manipulation; sensors and actuators for robotic end-effectors; motion control for nonholonomic robots; under-actuated autonomous robotic vehicles; GPS-aided navigation of mobile robots

Time-frequency methods for the analysis of signals and systems (e.g. wavelet basis representations); exploitation of auditory-physiological insights in time-frequency analysis of acoustic data; independent component analysis;

Intelligent control architectures for complex systems inspired in part by biological paradigms such as central pattern generators, and space maps associated to auditory and other sensory modalities; learning binaurally directed movement; sensorimotor feedback in echo-locating bats; hybrid models for networks of sensors and actuators; languages for motion control

Technology of smart materials such as piezo-electric and magnetostrictive materials for use in actuation and sensing; nonlinear problems in such materials; hysteresis modeling and compensation; integration of such materials in structures (e.g. networking); computational methods in ferromagnetism with applications to the design of Terfenol-D actuators

Intelligent processing of materials with a special focus on semiconductor manufacturing; modeling, simulation, monitoring and control in semiconductor manufacturing processes, such as rapid thermal chemical vapor deposition; epitaxial growth of thin films and surface reconstruction in epitaxy

Dynamics and control of formations, swarming, flocking and related biological phenomena; acoustics and biological signal processing; pursuit phenomena and prey capture behavior in nature; evolutionary game-theoretic basis for strategies of pursuit; analysis of field data on starling flocks; inverse problem of reconstructing interaction laws for collectives; cognitive cost of flocking as measured by generative models from data; continuum models of flocks

Subriemannian geometry and optimal control in the study of collectives, and for the design of efficient, nanoscale heat engines; critical dynamics in field theory and related optimal control problems

The research interests described above are supported by a program of experimental investigations in the Intelligent Servosystems Lab (ISL) where, in the period 1986 – 2019, the projects included; experiments in positioning, vibration suppression and impact control of a flexible arm with embedded actuators; mechanical manipulation with a modular hand invented in ISL; a hybrid (piezoelectric-magnetostrictive) motor invented in ISL; nonholonomic robot design; a parallel linkage manipulator invented in ISL; 3-D solid modeling and graphical animation; and motor networks. The primary current emphasis in ISL is on mobile robotics and software for control of collectives of robots. A Vicon motion capture system was installed in 2013 to study collective behavior of robots, and is used to validate principles and algorithms applicable to biological and robotic collectives

Links of Interest

A volume of expository lectures on Motion, Control and Geometry (with on-line readable text)

Two volumes of papers on Mechanics

ISR archive of reports available on-line through DRUM (by year and author/topic keyword search, here sample = hamiltonian)

List of M.S. Students

List of Ph.D. Students and at Mathematics Genealogy Project

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Lecture of Interest

Hendrik W. Bode Prize Lecture (2007) of the IEEE Control Systems Society (slides and audio), Pursuit and Cohesion: In Nature and by Design.
Also PDF of slides for download

News Items of Interest

Use the search term Krishnaprasad at the ISR news archives