Biography

Professor Garbini's primary interests include analysis, design and control of dynamic systems, mechatronics, and instrumentation.

Teaching: Mechantronics
Mechatronics is the term originally coined to describe the integration of mechanical, electrical, and computer technologies into the design of complex products. Although products have long included all three components, traditional design methods viewed them as separate, independently realized aspects of the design. Mechatronics emphasizes global optimization by integrating these three components of the design process.

Since the Autumn of 1996, the Department of Mechanical Engineering has offered a guided undergraduate curriculum in mechatronics, consisting of these required and option courses, additional electives, and culminating in a special mechatronics capstone design course.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Washington, 1977

Research Statement

In Professor Garbini's principal research, he applies his background in controls and instrumentation to the development of a special-purpose micro-electromechanical system: Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM).

One of the oldest and most enduring dreams of the scientific community is to directly observe molecular structure nondestructively, in situ, in three dimensions, with Angstrom-scale resolution. Such an imaging technology would immediately address urgent needs in nanoscale engineering, materials science, molecular biology, and medicine. The objective of Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy research is to create such a technology.

The interdisciplinary UW MRFM group, housed in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, offers research opportunities in dynamic systems, controls and instrumentation.

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