David Taylor - Associate Professor

Dr. David G. Taylor received the B.S. (E.E.) degree from the University of Tennessee in 1983, and the M.S. (E.E.) and Ph.D. (E.E.) degrees from the University of Illinois in 1985 and 1988, respectively. He has worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at IBM. His doctoral research focused on feedback control of nonlinear systems with applications to electric machinery and robotic manipulators. Contributions included the development of an adaptive design methodology for nonlinear systems, the design of nonlinear controllers for electronically commutated motors and direct drive manipulators, and experimental implementation of a linearizing-decoupling transformation for switched reluctance motors.

Professor Taylor's current research interests are in the theory of nonlinear and adaptive control systems and applications in the areas of electromechanics, power electronics, and robotics. He has been applying the differential geometric approach to controller synthesis for nonlinear systems and merging this approach with asymptotic methods such as integral manifold design in two time-scale systems. His research also includes adaptive identification and control methods for electromechanical systems and devices. He received an NSF Research Initiation Grant and Presidential Young Investigator Award to work in these areas.