Professor William Holderbaum

My profile

Biography

I was awarded a Ph.D degree on Automatic Control with PhD thesis on developing new methodology to design control laws for hybrid systems. I was a research assistant at the University of Glasgow. I was then appointed Lecturer in Electronics Engineering at the School of Systems Engineering at the University of Reading in October 2001, Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Engineering in 2009 and Professor in Mathematics and Engineering in 2014. I have now recently been appointed at the Manchester Metropolitan University as Professor in control Engineering.

I have been involved in research with mathematical modeling and control theory with applications mainly to health, energy, and robotics. In particular Rehabilitation Engineering, Smart Grid, Power Generation, Wireless Power Transfer, Autonomous Vehicle, Motion planning, visualisation control. Professor Holderbaum has published over 100 papers in leading journals and international conferences.

Academic and professional qualifications

C.F.P Certificate in Further Professional Studies in Higher Education (Reading UK)

PhD Doctorat de l’universite de Lille “Automatic control and Signal-Processing” obtained with honours. Thesis title: Methodology to design new control laws for systems with Boolean inputs (Outstanding PhD graduating in 33 months). (Lille France)

D.E.A (Diplome d’Etude Appronfondies) “Instrumentation and Control”. University of Caen (qualifying exams for the Ph.D). (Caen, France)

Maitrise E.E.A (MsC equiv) Option Signal-processing and Control Systems. University of Reims (Reims, France)

Licence E.E.A (Beng equiv.) (Electronic - Electrical engineering - Automatic). University of Reims (Reims, France)

M.Sc Master of Science in Mathematics option: Pure Mathematics (Open University UK)

B.Sc Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Mathematics (First-class Honours) option Pure Mathematics (Open University UK)

Languages

French 

External examiner roles

I have been involved as PhD examiners in the UK 

Expert reviewer

I am an expert reviewer for EPSRC and MRC

Expert reviewer for external funding bodies

I have reviewed on regular basis numbers of EPSRC grant proposal as well as research proposal submitted to MRC

I am a member of the EPSRC Peer Review Associate College. This involved of being part EPSRC peer review panel.Reviewer EPSRC

Editorial Board membership

Journal of “Nonlinear Dynamics & Mobile Robotics”. This is a traditional strictly peer-reviewed printed journal. The scientific level of contributions is the only criterion for publication in the journal.

I am member of the Editorial Board of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073, IF: 1.602) which an open access journal publishing related scientific research, technological developments, engineering, and studies in policy and management.

I am Associate Editor, for the IMA Journal of Mathematical Control and Information which involves choosing reviewers and making final decision for the paper submitted.

I am Associate Editor, for the Springer journal for Nonlinear Dynamics which involves reviewing papers and making final decision for the paper submitted

I am member of the Editorial Board of Global Journal of Engineering Research (Editorial Membership ID: #UK542197)

Membership of professional associations

Member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member of the IEE (Institute of Engineering and Technology)
Nominated in the Who’s Who

Teaching

Supervision

Current Ph.D. students

 Maximilian J. Zangs “Multiple Agent Systems in Smart Energy Management.”

Deborah Ritzmann “Measurement systems and analysis to enable increased renewable energy penetration through improved power transmission line utilisation.”

Stefano Pietrosanti “Delivering Sustainable Energy Solutions in Ports: Energy storage and flow in cranes. Modelling of the Storage””

Ruth White “Data Fusion Sensors in Healthcare”

Anthony Nnaji “Nonlinear compensation from frictions of servo command ”

Joel Ausonio “Artificial Neural Network Fault Diagnosis”

Completed PhDs:

Charles Moorey “Mathematical Modelling of Wireless transmission of power”

James Rowden “The development and Analysis of a Portable Power Systems for Soldiers and Other Potential Applications”

Chris Knight “Control of flywheel energy storage” Engineering Doctorate “EngD”

Antonios Markakis “Control Systems and Bond Graphs in Power Electronics”

Ross Adams “Classification of Control Systems on the Euclidean Group SE (2)”

Matthew Rowe “Smart Energy Management Using Agent Based Control”

Mohamad Alkowatly “Navigation and Guidance to Unmanned Air Vehicles”

Timur Yunusov “Power Electronics in new topology and control”

Carol Linton “Trajectory Planning using Symmetry’”

Natalie Lowery “Monitoring and Quality Control of Fuel Cells by Magnetic Tomography, Data Analysis and Classification Tools”.

Chris Tucker “The Transmission of Power by Magnetic Resonance”

Thomas Milthorp “Novel Control Systems of Automated Soil Testing”

Chris Bowden “Controllability and Observability of an n-link Inverted Pendulum ”

 Michele Vanoncini “Improving Posture in Paraplegia via Functional Electrical Stimulation”

James Biggs “Integrable Hamiltonian systems on Six Dimensional Lie Groups”

Research outputs

My research program has concentrated on furthering the field of control theory and modelling. My early work was focused on hybrid dynamical systems. This work culminated in the development of the Hamiltonian systems on Lie Group, and that has become widely recognised nationally and internationally through seminar invitation in Universities worldwide. Over the past fifteen years I have applied my control expertise to several applications and in particular rehabilitation engineering and energy transmission, storage for electrical systems, and power systems. In rehabilitation engineering a major contribution was techniques for controlling the trunk standing up using electrical stimulation. Furthermore my research in energy storage has given promising result in the use of multiple agent systems and intelligent control to minimise energy consumption when using multiple storage combined with harvesting technology. Novel research in creating a model of wireless power transfer has enormous potential in the automotive industry and already early results through publications has shown promising results. Finally my research is also in autonomous flying vehicle and in particular in the area of motion planning and visualisation.