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Martin Berg

Martin Berg Associate Professor Emeritus

  berg@uw.edu
  206-543-5288
  MEB 311
  Faculty website

Education

  • Ph.D., Stanford University, 1986

Biography

Professor Berg's principal technical area of interest is control system design. To be effective as a control system designer, one needs a solid background in dynamic system modeling and analysis and parameter identification, so Dr. Berg has strong interests in these areas as well.

Research-wise, Dr. Berg is principally interested in control system design applied to real problems. He has no particular bent toward any particular application area. That the principles of control system design are applicable to so many different engineering and non-engineering areas is one of the things that makes it so interesting to him.

It is important to Dr. Berg that his research activities be directed toward the solution of real problems. There are several reasons for this:

  • To the extent that his research activities contribute to the solution of real problems, he can expect those who benefit from it to help support it.
  • In application areas such as manufacturing, he believes that he can contribute to the solution of real problems in ways that make it cost-effective for those who benefit from it to fully support it.
  • The graduate students whom he supports under the umbrella of his research activities gain experiences at solving real problems that give them a tremendous leg up when the time comes for them to go after real jobs.
  • He is convinced that there are many real-world problems out there, the solution of which involves subject matter that is the right stuff for university M.S.- and Ph.D.-level research, and which can be most cost-effectively solved by teams that include members from industry and members (faculty and graduate students) from academia.
  • He strongly believes that the experiences he has gained tackling real problems in his research work have made him much more effective as a teacher in the undergraduate and graduate courses that he teaches during the autumn, winter and spring quarters of every academic year.

Select publications

  1. M.C. Berg, N. Amit, and J. D. Powell, "Multirate Digital Control System Design," IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 33, No. 12, pp. 1139-1150, 1988.
  2. M. C. Berg, "Introduction to a Special Coordinate Basis for Multivariable Linear Systems," IEE Proceedings on Control Theory and Applications, Vol. 145, No. 3, pp. 204-210, 1998.
  3. V. Lertpiriyasuwat, M. C. Berg and K. W. Buffington, "Extended Kalman Filtering Applied to a Two-Axis Robotic Arm with Flexible Links," International Journal of Robotics Research , Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 254-270, 2000.
  4. D. B. Rathbun, M. C. Berg and K. W. Buffington, "Pulse Width Control for Precise Positioning of Structurally Flexible Systems Subject to Stiction and Coulomb Friction, ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, Vol. 126, No. 1, pp. 131-138, 2004.
  5. D. B. Rathbun, M. C. Berg and K. W. Buffington, "Piecewise-Linear-Gain Pulse Width Control for Precise Positioning of Structurally Flexible Systems Subject to Stiction and Coulomb Friction," ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control , Vol. 126, No. 1, pp. 139-143, 2004.
  6. Lertpiriyasuwat and M. C. Berg, "Adaptive Real-Time Estimation of End-Effector Position and Orientation using Precise Measurements of End-Effector Position," IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 304-319, 2006.