Group Director

Warren Dixon, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Dr. Warren Dixon received his Ph.D. degree in 2000 from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Clemson University. After completing his doctoral studies he was selected as an Eugene P. Wigner Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where he worked in the Robotics and Energetic Systems Group. In 2004, Dr. Dixon joined the faculty of the University of Florida in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. Dr. Dixon’s main research interest has been the development and application of Lyapunov-based control techniques for uncertain nonlinear systems. He has published 2 books, an edited collection, 4 chapters, and over 180 refereed journal and conference papers. His work has been recognized by the 2009 American Automatic Control Council (AACC) O. Hugo Schuck Award, 2006 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Early Academic Career Award, an NSF CAREER Award (2006-2011), 2004 DOE Outstanding Mentor Award for his student advising at ORNL, and the 2001 ORNL Early Career Award for Engineering Achievement for his contributions to Lyapunov-based control methods. Dr. Dixon is a senior member of IEEE. He serves on the IEEE CSS Technical Committe on Intelligent Control, is a primary member of the ASME DSC Division Mechatronics Technical Committee, is a member of numerous conference program committees, and serves on the conference editorial board for the IEEE CSS and RAS and the ASME DSC. He served as an appointed member to the IEEE CSS Board of Governors for 2008. He is currently an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics: Part B Cybernetics, Automatica, International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, and Journal of Robotics.
Email | Homepage | CV (pdf - last updated August 4, 2008)

Visiting Scientists and Postdoctoral Researchers

Ph.D. Students

Siddhartha Mehta

Siddhartha Mehta received his M.S. from both the Agricultural Engineering and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Departments at University of Florida in 2006. He is now enrolled as a Ph.D. student in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department.
Email | Homepage | Publications

Zachary Wilcox

Zach Wilcox grew up in Yarrow Point, a city just outside of Seattle, Washington, and lived there until moving to Florida to attend college in 2001. He received dual Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Florida's Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering department in the spring of 2006. During his undergraduate work, Zach participated as a diver on UF's Men's Swimming & Diving Team. In addition, he did research work for UF's Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) group and participated in International MAV competitions. He recieved his Masters of Science in Aerospace Engineering from University of Florida in the spring of 2008. He is currently a Doctoral Student in the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics Group in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering under the advisement of Dr. Dixon.
Email | Publications

Nitin Sharma

Nitin Sharma received his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology in Patiala, India, in 2004. After graduation, he worked for two years at Maruti Udyog Ltd., which is India's premier automobile company. After working there as a Graduate Engineer Trainee for one year, he was hired as an executive engineer at the Weld Engineering Department in the Production Engineering and Research division. Nitin is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in the UF Department of Mechanical engineering.
Email | Publications

Marcus Johnson

Marcus Johnson received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida in May 2007. He is currently a Doctoral Student in the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics group, under the advisement of Dr. Warren Dixon. Marcus grew up in Seattle, Washington and has lived in California, Texas, and Florida. During his undergraduate degree, he was an intern for the Boeing Company working in the Space Shuttle Program. In his spare time he enjoys playing soccer.
Email | Homepage | Publications

Shubhendu Bhasin

Shubhendu Bhasin received his bachelor's degree in Manufacturing Processes and Automation Engineering from Delhi University’s Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology in the year 2004. His undergraduate project was "Path Planning of Robot Manipulators Using Neural Networks." Thereafter, he worked at Tata Elxsi Ltd. as a Design and Development Engineer, writing embedded software for set-top boxes. His interest in intelligent robots combined with his newly gained experience in embedded software has led him seek higher education. He is presently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Florida in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. He hopes to someday develop a truly intelligent robot, which can think, reason and even act like humans.
Email | Publications

Ashwin Dani

Ashwin Dani received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering Pune, India, in 2005. After this he worked as a software development engineer for a year (2005-2006) with IBM, the world's leading IT giant, at Bangalore, India. Currently he is pursuing his Ph.D. in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Florida in the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics group.
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Zhen Kan

Zhen Kan received a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Design and Automation Engineering from Hefei University of Technology (HFUT) in China in 2005, and a Master's degree in Mechatronic Engineering in 2007, also from HFUT. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD degree in the Nonlinear Control and Robotics group at the University of Florida (UF) under the supervision of Dr. Warren Dixon.
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Dohee Kim

Dohee Kim received his B.S. Degree in 2006 and his M.S. degree in 2008 in Dept. of Astronomy and Space science from Yonsei University, Korea. In his thesis, he designed and developed Hardware-In-the-Loop(HIL) simulator for spacecraft attitude control (Movie). He has a big interest about validation of nonlinear controller using hardware systems, optimal control, and various filtering techniques. He is currently a Doctoral student in the Nonlinear Control and Robotics Group in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering under the advisement of Dr. Warren Dixon.
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Nic Fischer

Nic Fischer recieved his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2008. He worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics group for two years before officially joining the group as a doctoral student in January of 2009. Nic's research focuses on Visual Servo Control.
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Qiang Wang

Qiang Wang received his PhD degree in biomedical engineering from Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical sciences for the ÊresearchÊon biomedical applications of near infrared spectroscopy. He had worked as a postdoctoral associate in the department of biomedical engineering of University of Florida for three years, doing research in biomedical optics. Currently, he is interested in biomedical applications of nonlinear control and robotics and is going to pursue his second PhD degree in University of Florida.
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Sankrith Subramanian

Sankrith Subramanian received his bachelor’s degree in instrumentation and control engineering from St. Joseph’s College of Engineering (Anna University), Chennai, India in 2006, and his Master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida in 2009. His interests lie in the field of networked control systems, wireless communications and networks, and nonlinear controls. He is currently a PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics Group, advised by Dr. Warren Dixon, and co-advised by Dr. John Shea of the Wireless Information Networking Group. He is also a Research Associate in Dr. Marco Carvalho's group at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC).
Email | Publications

M.S. Thesis Students

Avdhut Joshi

Avdhut Joshi received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering for National Institute of Technology, Nagpur in 2007. His undergraduate research project was Vision based robotics system (implemented Stereo Vision). Currently he is pursuing a Master's degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at University of Florida in Non-Linear Controls and Robotics Group. His research interests are Vision based Control, Path Planning and Robotics.
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Huyen T. Dinh

Huyen Dinh received her Bachelor's of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Hanoi University of Technology, Vietnam in 2006. After that, she worked as a teaching assistant for 2 years (2006 - 2008)in Mechanical Engineering department of University of Transport and Communication in Hanoi, Vietnam. She is currently a Master Student as a member of the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics Group in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering under the advisement of Dr. Dixon. Her research interests include Nonlinear Controls and Robotics.
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Ganeshram Jayaraman

Ganeshram Jayaraman received his Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Sathyabama ÊUniversity, Chennai. His undergraduate research project was Bio-Electric control of a Three Degree of freedom Humanoid robot arm. Currently he's pursuing his Master's Degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at University of Florida in Nonlinear Controls and Robotics Group under the supervision of Dr. Warren Dixon. His research interests include Nonlinear adaptive Control and Robust control.
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Alumni

Co-Advised Alumni