Mahdi Shahbakhti

Contact
- Adjunct Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Co-Advisor of Alternative Energy Enterprise
- PhD, Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada
Biography
Dr. Shahbakhti joined MTU in August of 2012. Prior to this appointment, he was a post-doctoral
scholar for two years in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of
California, Berkeley. He worked in the automotive industry for 3.5 years on R&D of
powertrain management systems for gasoline and natural gas vehicles. Some of his past
academic and industrial research experience includes system identification, physical
modeling and control of dynamic systems including combustion engines, vehicle emission
aftertreatment systems, hybrid electric vehicles, and HVAC systems.
His research at Michigan Tech focuses on increasing efficiency of energy systems
through utilization of advanced control techniques. His current research involves
the transportation and building sectors which account for 68% of total consumed energy
in the United States. Dr. Shahbakhti's research to optimize efficiency of energy systems
centers on developing and incorporating the following research areas: thermo-kinetic
physical modeling, model order reduction, grey-box modeling, adaptive parameter estimation,
model-based and nonlinear controls.
Shahbakhti is an active member of ASME Dynamic Systems & Control Division (DSCD), serving as the vice-chair of the Energy Systems (ES) technical committee and secretary of the Automotive Transportation Systems (ATS) technical committee, chairing and co-organizing sessions in the areas of modeling, fault diagnosis, and control of automotive systems, and building energy systems.
Links of Interest
Areas of Expertise
- Dynamic Systems Modeling and Control
- Powertrain/Vehicle Control
- Internal Combustion Engines
- Vehicular Emissions and Aftertreatment Systems
- Building Energy Controls
Research Interests
- Modeling and Control of Energy Systems
- Hybrid Electric Vehicles
- Connected Vehicles
- Advanced Combustion Engines
- Energy Control of Buildings in a Smart Grid
- HVAC/Climate Controls