Alleyne Named Associate Dean for Research

6/26/2012 By Kathryn L. Heines

Andrew AlleyneAndrew Alleyne, the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering, has been named the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering, pending approval by the Board of Trustees. The Associate Dean for Research is a 50%-time position that will be replacing the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives position.

Written by By Kathryn L. Heines

Andrew Alleyne
Andrew Alleyne
Andrew Alleyne
Andrew Alleyne, the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering, has been named the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering, pending approval by the Board of Trustees. The Associate Dean for Research is a 50%-time position that will be replacing the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives position.

"Professor Alleyne is a rigorous and productive researcher, and the breadth of his scholarly work is especially impressive in light of the depth of his knowledge across his various research interests," explained Ilesanmi Adesida, dean of the College of Engineering. "As well as being a leader within his field, he has played an impressive leadership role in his department, the college, and the university. His energy and his enthusiasm for academia will add great strength to the College of Engineering Leadership Team."

Alleyne earned his BSE in mechanical/aerospace engineering from Princeton University, and his MSE and PhD in mechanical engineering from University of California at Berkeley. He joined mechanical engineering faculty at Illinois in 1994, and he was named the Ralph M. and Catherine V. Fisher Professor in 2002.

Professor Alleyne's research addresses a range of issues within controls: the analysis and design of control systems in a dimensionless framework, advanced motion control through iterative learning control and adaptive feedforward techniques, and robust control approaches to gain-scheduling as they relate to vehicle dynamics, large- and small-scale manufacturing systems and fluid power.

His recent research on the dimensionless analysis of control systems showed that the use of dimensionless form reduces parametric uncertainty with respect to controls, and that the parameters are interdependent. This research has the potential to impact the design of disk drives, cars and other ground vehicles, robots and satellites. He also incorporated time-frequency analysis into existing adaptive feedforward techniques, which improved their tracking accuracy significantly. The resulting improvement in motion tracking performance allowed him to combine performance and robustness within a single algorithm, something that was previously an "either-or" situation.


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This story was published June 26, 2012.