U OF M COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
CONTROL SEMINAR SERIES
WINTER TERM 1998
Professor Arthur D. Kuo
artkuo@engin.umich.edu
Friday, April 10, 1998
4:00 - 5:00 pm
1200 EECS
Title: How do you know where you are, and what you are
doing? On the use of control theory to understand
biological systems
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Abstract
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Humans and
other animals use a wide array of sensors to control and
detect motion. Information from these sensors is sent through
signal processing circuits in the brain which act to stabilize gaze
in space and to produce a subjective perception of spatial orientation.
When inaccurate or incomplete sensory information is available, certain
motions are perceived incorrectly. These illusions have ramifications
for groups as disparate as pilots, persons with sensory deficits, and
the elderly.
We will discuss how physical modeling and control theory analysis
can be used to study and understand both physiological behaviors
and the underlying neurophysiology of certain types of perceptions
and movements.
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Biosketch
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I attended the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1983 to 1987,
graduating with a B.S. in Electrical
Engineering. I then went to
Stanford University
to do a Ph.D. in the
Mechanical
Engineering Dept.'s
Design
Division. There, I worked with
Dennis
Carter studying orthopaedic biomechanics and morphology of
trabecular bone. I then worked with
Felix
Zajac for my Ph.D., studying ways to describe the set
of possible accelerations and forces that can be produced
in a multi-body mechanical system, and applied that to analyzing
human balance. I received my Ph.D. in 1993 and then went to
the R.S. Dow Neurological Sciences Institute in Portland,
Oregon, to work with the Center for Vestibular Research,
which was established to encourage interdisciplinary research
involving neurophysiologists and engineers. In 1994 I came
to the University of Michigan,
where I am now an Assistant Professor of
Mechanical
Engineering. My teaching
is in the areas of dynamics & vibrations, and systems & control.
I retain my research interests in human balance control,
relying on the methods of control theory and multi-body dynamics.
I have a variety of other interests described
in my Research page.
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December 1997
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