David G. Wilson

About

David G. Wilson’s research career bridges two seemingly distinct worlds: the precise, vibration-sensitive dynamics of flexible robots and the emergent, decentralized control of collective robotic systems. His foundational work on flexible-link manipulators, including the development of augmented sliding mode control and output feedback architectures, has provided robust solutions for suppressing residual vibrations in lightweight structures. His 2002 paper on flexible robot dynamics remains his most cited work (63 citations), while his 2001 paper on robust adaptive backstepping for nonholonomic mobile robots introduced a novel bridge between kinematic and dynamic control layers. Later, Wilson expanded into renewable energy microgrid control, designing feedback controllers for DC bus systems with energy storage integration (31 citations). Perhaps most distinctively, he pioneered the application of thermodynamic concepts—exergy and entropy—to collective robotics, enabling teams of simple robots to trace chemical plumes using minimal information. His Hamiltonian surface shaping approach (2010) and decentralized thermodynamic control laws represent a creative fusion of physics and control theory. Across these contributions, Wilson demonstrates a rare ability to apply rigorous control methodologies—from sliding mode to dynamic programming—to both classical robotic systems and emerging cyber-physical challenges.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Flexible Robot Dynamics and Controls

   63 citations · 2002
2. 2
   Augmented Sliding Mode Control for Flexible Link Manipulators

   35 citations · 2002
3. 3
   Robust adaptive backstepping control for a nonholonomic mobile robot

   33 citations · 2001
4. 4
   Renewable energy microgrid control with energy storage integration

   31 citations · 2012
5. 5
   Discrete dynamic programming for optimized path planning of flexible robots

   20 citations · 2005
6. 6
   System Identification

   14 citations · 2002
7. 7
   Robust control design for flexible-link/flexible-joint robots

   13 citations · 2002
8. 8
   Hamiltonian surface shaping with information theory and exergy/entropy control for collective plume tracing

   10 citations · 2010
9. 9
   Collective plume tracing: A minimal information approach to collective control

   8 citations · 2009
10. 10
    Decentralized Exergy/Entropy Thermodynamic Control for Collective Robotic Systems

    4 citations · 2007

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links