Kenneth M. Sobel

Professor, Deputy Chair

Main Affiliation

Electrical Engineering

Building

Steinman Hall

Office

ST 655

Phone

(212) 650-7241

Fax

(212) 650-8249

Photo of Prof. Kenneth Sobel

Kenneth M. Sobel

Profile

Dr. Sobel's doctoral dissertation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1980 proved the stability of the simple adaptive control approach to model reference adaptive control  for multi-input multi-output systems. During the period 1980-87, Dr. Sobel was a research engineer at the Lockheed California Company where he developed novel modern control laws for advanced technology flight vehicles. Since 1987 Dr. Sobel has been with The City College of New York where he is currently Professor of Electrical Engineering.

Dr. Sobel has published over 70 papers in the areas of eigenstructure assignment, robust control, adaptive control, and the application of modern control theory to flight control design. He is coauthor of a book entitled Direct Adaptive Control Algorithms Theory and Applications. His work on eigenstructure assignment has appeared in The Control Handbook

Dr. Sobel has been awarded summer faculty fellowships at NASA Langley Research Center and at the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory. He was principal investigator on U.S. Air Force contracts with both Wright-Patterson AFB and Eglin AFB.. He received a NASA FAR award for research on eigenstructure assignment for fault tolerant flight control design.

Dr. Sobel is a former Associate Editor of the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics and an Associate Fellow of the AIAA. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Aerospace Engineering (2010-present).

Education

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, Troy, 1980

M.S., Electrical Engineering, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, Troy, 1978

B.S., Electrical Engineering, The City College, New York, 1976  

 

Courses Taught

EE221 Electrical Engineering Laboratory I

EE371 Linear Feedback Systems

EE456 Elements of Control Theory

EE426 Control Laboratory

EE I4100 Modern Control Theory

Research Interests

adaptive control, eigenstructure assignment, reconfigurable control, application of modern control to aircraft flight control

Publications

Cano, A. and Sobel, K. (2016) Simple Adaptive Delta Operator Aircraft Flight Control for Accommodation of Loss of Control Effectiveness. Engineering, 8, 173-195. doi: 10.4236/eng.2016.84016.

Nieto-Wire, C. and Sobel, K.,"Delta Operator Eigenstructure Assignment for Reconfigurable Control of a Tailless Aircraft", Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, (2014), doi: http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/1.G000036

Cano Martinez, A. and Sobel, K.,"Simple Adaptive Control in the Delta Domain Using a Linear Matrix Inequality", Proceedings of the 2014 AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, National Harbor, Maryland, January 13-17, 2014.

Nieto-Wire, C. and Sobel, K., "Delta Operator Eigenstructure Assignment for Fault Detection and Control of a Tailless Aircraft", Proceedings of the 2013 AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Boston, MA, August 19-22, 2013, AIAA-2013-4778.

Nieto-Wire, C. and Sobel, K., "Flight control design for a tailless aircraft using eigenstructure assignment", International Journal of Aerospace Engineering, vol. 2011, Article ID 549131, 13 pages, 2011, doi:10.1155/2011/549131.

K. M. Sobel, E. Y. Shapiro, and A. N. Andry, Jr., "Eigenstructure Assignment", in The Control Handbook, 2nd edition, Vol. 2, Control System Application, (W.S. Levine, Ed.), CRC Press, Inc., December 2010.

Nieto-Wire, C. and Sobel, K., "Observer based residual generator design for muliple fault and detection isolation", Junior Scientist Conference 2010, Vienna University of Technology, April 7-9, 2010

Nieto-Wire, C.  and Sobel, K. , “Reconfigurable delta operator eigenstructure assignment for a tailless aircraft”, Proceedings of the 2009 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Chicago, IL, August 10-13, 2009, AIAA-2009-6306

Nieto-Wire, C.  and Sobel, K. , “Eigenstructure assignment for a tailless aircraft”, Proceedings of the 2007 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Hilton Head, SC, August 20-23, 2007, AIAA-2007-6217

Belkharraz A.I. and Sobel, K. , “Simple adaptive control for aircraft control surface failures”, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Vol. 42, Issue 2, April 2007, pp. 600-611

Belkharraz A.I. and Sobel, K. , “Simple adaptive control in the delta domain for aircraft control surface failures”, Proceedings of the 2005 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, San Francisco, CA, August 15-18, 2005, AIAA-2005-6249

Belkharraz A.I. and Sobel, K. , “Direct adaptive control for aircraft control surface failures during gust conditions”, Proceedings of the 2004 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Providence, RI, August 16-19, 2004, AIAA-2004-4870

Belkharraz A.I. and Sobel, K. , “Direct adaptive control for aircraft control surface failures”, Proceedings of the 2003 American Control Conference, Denver, Colorado, June 4-6, 2003

Belkharraz A.I. and Sobel, K. , “Eigenstructure invariance for an anticipated control surface failure”, Proceedings of the 2001 American Control Conference

Belkharraz A.I. and Sobel, K. , “Fault tolerant flight control for a class of control surface failures”, Proceedings of the 2000 American Control Conference

Kaufman H., Barkana I., and Sobel, K., Model Reference Adaptive Control: Theory and Applications, 2nd Edition, Springer-Verlag, 1998

K. M. Sobel, E. Y. Shapiro, and A. N. Andry, Jr., "Eigenstructure Assignment", in The Control Handbook, (W.S. Levine, Ed.), CRC Press, Inc., December 1995.

J. E. Piou and K. M. Sobel, ``Robust multirate eigenstructure assignment with flight control application,'' Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 539-546, May-June 1995.

J. E. Piou and K. M. Sobel, ``Yaw pointing/lateral translation using robust sampled data eigenstructure assignment,'' Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 1133-1135, September-October 1994.

K. M. Sobel, E. Y Shapiro, and A. N. Andry, Jr., ``Eigenstructure assignment,'' International Journal of Control, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 13-37, 1994.

W. Yu, J.E. Piou, and K. M. Sobel, ``Robust eigenstructure assignment for the extended medium range air to air missile,'' Automatica, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 889-898, 1993.