Massoud Amin

Amin Research Group Site

My research efforts have spanned a broad spectrum of activities – helicopters, airplanes, silicon basal growth, power grids – but there is a basic, unifying thread that runs through them all. There are certain fundamental problems and underpinning dynamics that exist in any of these systems. It is these problems I have attempted to address: where to judiciously place the sensors, what to measure, how to identify and estimate the systems, developing reliable robust controllers, performance monitoring and improvement along with economic and other related impacts.

Virtually every crucial economic and social function depends on the secure, reliable operation of energy, telecommunications, transportation, financial, and other infrastructures. From a strategic R&D viewpoint, the agility and robustness/survivability of large-scale dynamic networks that face new and unanticipated operating conditions is being addressed. A major challenge is posed by the lack of a unified mathematical framework with robust tools for modeling, simulation, control and optimization of time-critical operations in complex multicomponent and multi-scaled networks.

Extensions of my work include theoretical and practical aspects of reconfigurable and self-repairing controls, infrastructure security, enterprise information security, on-line risk-based decision making, system optimization, and differential game theory for aerospace, energy, and transportation applications.

Building on these foundations, my current research focuses on “global transition dynamics” to enhance resilience, security and efficiency of national critical infrastructures to enable more robust systems operation, security monitoring and efficient markets.