Dawn Tilbury

I am the inaugural Department Chair and a Professor in the Robotics department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and I have a courtesy appointment in the Mechanical Engineering and EECS departments. You can find my CV here. My research interests lie in the area of control systems, and I am a member of the Controls Group in the College of Engineering.

My undergraduate degree is in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. I did my M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of California in Berkeley, in the EECS Department in the Intelligent Machines and Robotics Laboratory.

From 2017 to 2021, I served as Assistant Director for Engineering at the National Science Foundation.

My office number is 2200 Ford Robotics Building, phone (734) 936-2129, and my mailing address is:

Robotics Department
University of Michigan
2505 Hayward Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2106 USA

but it's much easier to just send email: tilbury@umich.edu.

Research

My research interests include control theory and applications in many different domains. I currently collaborate with Prof. Kira Barton on Smart Manufacturing topics, including digital twins, prognostics and health management, and reconfiguraton of manufacturing systems. I also collaborate with Prof. Lionel Robert on human-robot teaming.

Within the ERC for Reconfigurable Manufacturing The Reconfigurable Factory Testbed (RFT) was used to implement many of the control methodologies that we developed. We published some of our testing results for wireless networks in a Wireless Test Results Booklet.

I was the director of the Ground Robotics Research Center on reliability of autonomous ground vehicles. The robotics activities are now within the ARC, and I was Deputy Director of the Automotive Research Center (ARC) from 2011-2013.

I previously worked with colleagues at IBM in the application of control theory to computing systems, see our book on Feedback Control of Computing Systems. I have also done some work in nonlinear control, both theory and applications, looking at problems of trajectory generation and stabilization for nonlinear systems, and applications to such systems as a helicopter and mobile robots.

The best way to find a listing of my publications is via my Google Scholar profile.

Service

American Automatic Control Council (AACC)

I am currently president of AACC (2021-2022), and will be past president in 2023-2024.

International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC)

I am currently a regular Council Member of IFAC (triennia 2017-2020 and 2020-2023).

ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division

From July 2010 through June 2011, I was the Chair of the DSCD.

Mentoring and Networking Workshop for Junior Women Faculty in the Big 10

In April 2010 and 2013, I co-organized the Big 10 Women's Workshop in Milwaukee. The purposes of the workshop were to provide a professional networking opportunity, cultivate peer collaboration and mentoring relationships, and foster interactions between junior women faculty and senior women faculty role models.

ASME-DSC Conference 2008

I was on the organizing committee for the first Annual ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, held in Ann Arbor, October 20-22, 2008.

WODES 2006

I co-organized the 8th International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems (WODES), held in Ann Arbor, July 10-12, 2006. Check the website for photos of the conference, banquet, and dinner trek.

Workshop on Logic Control

In June 2000, I co-organized a Workshop on Logic Control for Manufacturing Systems, which brought together industry practitioners and academic researchers to discuss problems and solutions. One of the outcomes of the workshop was a list of the Top 10 Challenges in Logic Control for Manufacturing Systems.

Teaching

ME360, Modeling, Analysis, and Control of Dynamic Systems.: Fall 1997, Winter 1998, Winter 2000, Winter 2001, Winter 2003, Winter 2004, Fall 2006, Winter 2009, Fall 2009, Fall 2013.
ME395, Laboratory I.: Winter 1999, Winter 2000, Fall 2002, Winter 2004, Winter 2005, Winter 2006, Winter 2012, Winter 2016
ME461, Automatic Control.: Winter 1995, Winter 1996, Fall 1998, Fall 1999, Fall 2005, Fall 2011, Winter 2017.
ME540/Aero540, Introduction to Dynamics.: Fall 2004.
ME561/EECS561/Aero571, Design of Digital Control Systems.: Winter 1997.
ME564/EECS560/Aero550, Linear Systems Theory.: Fall 1996, Fall 1998, Fall 2000, Fall 2012.
ME/EECS/Mfg 567, Introduction to Robotics: Winter 2007, Winter 2008, Winter 2013, Winter 2015
ME662/EECS 662/Aero 672, Advanced Nonlinear Control.: Fall 1995.

Control Tutorials for Matlab and Simulink

In conjunction with teaching ME461, I developed a set of web-based tutorials to introduce students to the use of Matlab for the design and analysis of control systems. These tutorials won an Undergraduate Computational Science Award from the US Department of Energy through the Ames Laboratory, and the Educom Medal, nominated by ASME. The NSF supported the original development these tutorials. An updated (for Matlab 5) and expanded (to include Simulink tutorials) version of the tutorials was published by Addison-Wesley (now Prentice Hall) in 1999. The tutorials have been updated from time to time by Professors Bill Messner and Rick Hill and their students, with funding from Mathworks.

Linear Systems Theory on YouTube

When I taught Linear Systems Theory (ME 564/EECS 560/Aero 550) in Fall 2012 I asked the students in class to create videos about some of the concepts we covered. The purpose of the video assignment was for students to get to know some other students in class. Some of the videos have been posted to YouTube, follow the link above.

4/16/23