Luis Rodrigues

education | experience | publications | memberships&awards | contact | international meetings&invited talks


My new page has moved to here .

Education

  • PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University , June 2002. During my PhD, I was a visiting student at MIT from June 2000 to January 2002.

  • Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computers, September 1997 from Instituto Superior Técnico - Universidade Técnica de Lisboa.

  • "Licenciatura" Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computers in September 1995 from Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (IST/UTL)

    My research interests are:

  • Control of complex dynamical systems.
  • Control of switched systems.
  • Hybrid and nonlinear control
  • Convex optimization methods applied to control theory
  • Control of autonomous air vehicles (UAVs) and underwater vehicles (AUVs) .
  • Control of biological systems
  • Control with limited information

    An interesting site about Control Systems Engineering World-Wide can be found here .


    Experience

  • Concordia University , Montréal, Québec, Canada (1/03-)
    Assitant Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering .

  • Ydreams, Lisboa, Portugal, EU (9/02-12/02)
    Project Manager for the development of a virtual reality GIS with fly-over large terrains capabilities.

  • Eliza Corporation, Beverly, MA, USA (2/02-8/02)
    Consultant for a project of automatic speech recognition.

  • Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, CA, USA (1/99-1/02)
    Research assistant for a project on control of complex systems (piecewise-affine, nonlinear and hybrid) with applications to engineering. Part of the research was conducted while I was a visiting student at MIT.

  • Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, CA, USA (9/98-1/99).
    Teaching assistant for Control course E205.

  • Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, CA, USA (1/98-9/98)
    Research assistant at the Aerospace Robotics Laboratory. Responsible for setting up all sensing software and hardware for a project of automatic docking of a boat using GPS measurements of position and attitude.

  • Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR) - Dynamic Systems and Ocean Robotics Laboratory, Lisboa, Portugal (9/95-9/97)
    Research assistant for a project of parallel parking of an undeactuated underwater vehicle. The project - SIRENE - was a co-operation of ISR (Portugal) with IFREMER (France).

  • Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR) - Dynamic Systems and Ocean Robotics Laboratory, Lisboa, Portugal (3/95-9/95)
    Research assistant for a project of sliding modes control of the first prototype robotic underwater vehicle developed in Europe. The project - MARIUS - was a co-operation of ISR (Portugal) with the University of Lingby (Denmark), Thomson (France) and other partners.

  • Department of Applied Mathematics, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal (9/93-3/95).
    Teaching assistant for courses on Linear Algebra and Mathematical Analysis.

  • Siemens Geraetewerk, Erlangen, Germany (8/1992)
    Internship on quality control of electronic equipment for control and robotics.

  • World Trade Center, Lisboa, Portugal (1989-1990)
    Internship as system's analyst (client's database).

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    Publications


  • "Dynamic Output Feedback Controller Synthesis for Piecewise-Affine Systems"
    PhD Thesis, June 2002, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.

  • "Observer-Based Control of Piecewise-Affine Systems"
    December 4-7 2001, Proceedings of the 40th Conference on Decision and Control , pp.1366-1371, Orlando, Florida, USA.
    Submitted to the International Journal of Control.
    Co-author: Jonathan P. How.

  • "Automated Control Design for a Piecewise-Affine Approximation of a Class of Nonlinear Systems"
    June 25-27 2001, Proceedings of the American Control Conference 2001, pp.3189-3194, Arlington, Virginia, USA.
    Co-author: Jonathan P. How.
    Best Paper in Session Award .

  • "Output Feedback Controller Synthesis for Piecewise-Affine Systems with Multiple Equilibria"
    June 28-30 2000, Proceedings of the American Control Conference 2000, pp.1784-1789, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
    Co-authors: Arash Hassibi, Jonathan P. How.
    Best Paper in Session Award .

  • "Hybrid Control of an Underactuated Underwater Shuttle for the Deployment of Benthic Laboratories"
    Master's Thesis submitted in September 1997 to the Department of Electrical Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal.

  • "Sliding Mode Control of an AUV in the Diving and Steering Planes"
    September 1996, Proceedings of Oceans 96 MTS/IEEE, pp. 576-583, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
    Co-authors: Miguel Prado, Paulo Tavares .

  • "Sliding Mode Control of an AUV in the Diving Plane"
    September 1996, Proceedings of the 2nd Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control - Controlo 96", pp.757-762, Porto, Portugal.
    Co-authors: Miguel Prado, Paulo Tavares.

  • "Neural Network Based Control of Biped Locomotion - Genetic Algorithm Optimization"
    September 1996, Proceedings of the 2nd Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control - Controlo 96", pp.815-820, Porto, Portugal.
    Co-authors: Miguel Prado, Paulo Tavares, Kelo da Silva, Pedro Lima , Agostinho Rosa .

  • "Simulation and Control of Biped Locomotion - GA Optimization"
    May 1996, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Evolutionary Computation, pp.390-395, Nagoya, Japan.
    Co-authors: Miguel Prado, Paulo Tavares, Kelo da Silva, Agostinho Rosa.

  • "Nonlinear Control of Autonomous Vehicles"
    October 1995, Final Project Thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal.
    Co-authors: Miguel Prado, Paulo Tavares.

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    Memberships and Awards


  • AIAA Student Member 99/02. AIAA Officer of the Stanford University Student Chapter in 1999-2000.

  • IEEE Student Member 96/02.

  • PAPS, Luso-American Post-Graduate Society member.

  • FULBRIGHT Scholarship 97/02.

  • PRAXIS XXI - PhD Scholarship 97/01 (BD/11314/97).

  • GULBENKIAN Scholarship for Tuition 97/98.

  • IEEE Student Fellowship - Honor for outstanding achievement (ICEC 96 - Nagoya, Japan)

  • PRAXIS XXI - Master Scholarship 95/97 (BM/6839/95).

  • PRODEP 95 Scholarship - Internship at the Institute for Systems and Robotics in the context of the Final Project Thesis.


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    Contact Information


    Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
    Concordia University University
    Sir George Williams Campus
    1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Room H549
    Montréal, Québec, Canada H3G 1M8

    		 Tel.: (514)8482424 x3135
    Fax.: (514)8484524


    It was accessed times since then.


    Last updated: January 2003
    It is maintained by: Luis Rodrigues

    		Email: luisrod@CO
    where CO stands for me.concordia.ca



    International Meetings and Invited Talks


  • "Automated Controller Synthesis for a Class of Complex Systems", invited talk at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering of Concordia University, July 2002, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
  • "Dynamic Output Feedback Controller Synthesis for Piecewise-Affine Systems", invited talk to the SEC group at MIT, May 2002, Boston, MA, USA.
  • "Observer-Based Control of Piecewise-Affine Systems", student talk at the Sixth Annual LIDS Student Conference, MIT, February 2001, Boston, MA, USA.
  • System Theory on the Eve of the 21st Century, June 28th-July 3rd, 1999, Arrábida, Portugal.
  • Future Directions in Systems and Control Theory, June 22nd-June 25th, 1999, Hotel Baía, Cascais, Portugal.
  • Summer School on Modelling and Conrol of Mechanisms and Robots, July 1996, University of Bologna , Bologna, Italy.
    This Summer School was held in Bertinoro. Take a look at some pictures of the participants.

    The whole group
    Some of the guys that stayed one more day after the end of the School
    Having dinner at a Pizzeria!


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    Only art and science can raise men to the level of gods.

    Ludwig Van Beethoven