Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Michael M. Zavlanos research focuses on control theory, optimization, learning, and AI and, in particular, autonomous systems and robotics, networked and distributed control systems, and cyber-physical systems.
Appointments and Affiliations
- Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
- Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Associate Professor of Computer Science
- Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society
Contact Information
- Office Location: Wilkinson Building, Room 417, Durham, NC 27708
- Office Phone: (919) 660-5528
- Email Address: michael.zavlanos@duke.edu
- Websites:
Education
- Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 2008
Research Interests
Control theory, optimization, and learning; in particular, robotics and autonomous systems, networked and distributed control systems, and cyber-physical systems.
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions
- Young Investigator Program Award. Office of Naval Research. 2014
- Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. National Science Foundation. 2012
- Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. National Science Foundation. 2011
Courses Taught
- ECE 291: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering
- ECE 382L: Control of Dynamic Systems
- ME 344L: Control of Dynamic Systems
- ME 591: Research Independent Study in Mechanical Engineering or Material Science
- ME 592: Research Independent Study in Mechanical Engineering or Material Science
- ME 758S: Curricular Practical Training
In the News
- Bringing Order to the ‘Wild West’ of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (Jan 23, 2023 | Duke AI Health)
- Duke Adds 21 Faculty to Distinguished Faculty Rank (May 7, 2019)
- The Challenge: Controlling Drones After You Lose Communication With Them (Dec 6, 2018 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- Four Faculty Named Distinguished Professors (Jun 29, 2018)
Representative Publications
- Kantaros, Y., and M. M. Zavlanos. “Sampling-based optimal control synthesis for multirobot systems under global temporal tasks.” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 64, no. 5 (May 1, 2019): 1916–31. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2018.2853558.
- Ma, W. J., C. Oh, Y. Liu, D. Dentcheva, and M. M. Zavlanos. “Risk-averse access point selection in wireless communication networks.” IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems 6, no. 1 (March 1, 2019): 24–36. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCNS.2018.2792309.
- Freundlich, C., Y. Zhang, and M. M. Zavlanos. “Distributed Hierarchical Control for State Estimation with Robotic Sensor Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems 5, no. 4 (December 1, 2018): 2023–35. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCNS.2017.2782481.
- Guo, M., and M. M. Zavlanos. “Probabilistic Motion Planning Under Temporal Tasks and Soft Constraints.” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 63, no. 12 (December 1, 2018): 4051–66. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2018.2799561.
- Lee, S., and M. M. Zavlanos. “Approximate projection methods for decentralized optimization with functional constraints.” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 63, no. 10 (October 1, 2018): 3248–60. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2017.2778696.