People

Houssein is a Fulbright Scholar from Lebanon who recently graduated with a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering and is now a Research and Development Engineer at MTUWave Laboratory. Houssein is comparing the energy extraction performance of different shaped point absorber buoys undergoing significant motion and his modeling shows excellent results. He’s also working to derive optimal control solutions for nonlinear, time-varying, second order systems. Houssein is now working with Tania on further developing the Low-Friction Testbed to validate different WEC models including an hourglass-shaped buoy in addition to designing an energy maximization nonlinear Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy supported by machine learning.

Tania is developing control strategies to address the nonlinear Froude-Krylov forces arising from large-motion, non-cylindrical point absorber buoys. Her nonlinear model predictive control strategy assumes that wave force information is available in advance and is supported by the machine learning models Morgan is developing. She is working with Houssein to develop optimal control strategies for nonlinear WECs and validating WEC models using the Low-Friction Testbed. Tania was awarded Michigan Tech’s Topping Teaching Fellowship in the Fall of 2022 and is a remote intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado.

Morgan finished her MEEM B.S. in December 2021 and went straight into her M.S. program. Morgan uses machine learning to predict future wave forces on point absorber buoys. Using data collected in MTU Wave for a stationary sphere and our buoy force dynamometer, her models successfully predicted the forces several periods in advance. She’s recently acquired motion data of a heaving point absorber buoy using MTU Wave’s motion tracking system. She will use the upwind wave gauge information to create a new neural network wave force model.

Luke's research focuses on linear and nonlinear vibration control combining Simulink/Simscape modeling, control system design, calibration and experiments. His work will improve 3D printing on ships. Luke's a talented MTU Wave research engineer whose skills include instrumentation calibration, custom dSPACE application development, and test execution. He recently added our buoy dynamometer into MTU Wave's synchronization scheme. This allows precise timing of buoy actuation relative to wave maker commands.

Mady is in the first year of her M.S. program after finishing a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2023. She helped design MTU Wave’s low-friction test bed to explore WEC control system performance - the focus of her M.S. research. Mady is also a member of the Michigan Tech cross-country and track teams. 

Vasu's research focuses on design of a low-friction testbed for WEC modeling and control studies. He's developing machine learning strategies to maximum power for point absorbers operating the large motion, nonlinear regime.

Sal defended his Ph.D. in 2022 and is currently a postdoctoral research engineer at the National Renewable Laboratory in Colorado. His Ph.D. addressed modeling and control of a closely-spaced WEC array. He also explored the optimal placement of WECs to aid electrical energy transmission.

Kevin finished his M.S. in 2022, where he worked with Houssein Yassin to develop and solve the necessary conditions for a point absorber WEC with an hourglass-shaped buoy. He showed that candidate optimal solutions could be obtained for the resulting singular arc conditions.

Madelyn’s research combines WEC electrical and mechanical models to maximize energy production and transmission. WEC arrays are the primary focus where packetized energy is provided to loads. Madelyn is now doing her PhD at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and interns at Sandia National Laboratories.

Jacob completed his M.S. in 2022, where he designed and tested a buoy dynamometer used for validating large-motion buoy hydrodynamic models. Synchronized with MTU Wave’s instrumentation suite (wave gauges, an 11-camera Qualisys motion tracking system, and a dSPACE microLabBox), the dynamometer can measure vertical forces acting on a buoy while simultaneously applying motion profiles.