RIT - Department of Mechanical Engineering | People | Faculty

Agamemnon Crassidis Agamemnon Crassidis

Assistant Professor
Phone: 585-475-4730
E-mail: alceme@rit.edu
Office: 2031 Gleason

Biography:
Dr. Agamemnon Crassidis is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo specializing in control systems engineering and systems design and dynamics. Dr. Crassidis has worked for Veridian (formerly Calspan Corporation) at the Flight Research Facility in Buffalo, NY, as a senior aeronautical engineer and lead systems engineer for an experimental flight research aircraft (VISTA) used primarily as an in-flight simulator,Veridian Transportation Division as a part-time consulting engineer to analyze components of the Automated Highway System (AHS), the State University of New York at Buffalo as a part-time teaching faculty member, and the New York State Institute of Superconductivity as a test engineer. He has more than 10 years of industrial experience in the areas of aerospace flight control system design, mathematical modeling and identification of nonlinear systems using experimental responses, systems engineering, and mechanical systems design. He is an active member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) serving as a Technical Committee member for the Atmospheric Flight Mechanics section. He also has more than five years of teaching experience as a part-time and full-time faculty member teaching graduate courses in systems analysis, continuous control system design, and digital control system design, and statics.

Over the years, Dr. Crassidis has worked in a number of technical areas. His Ph.D. dissertation research activities were focused on the nonlinear control (augmented version of sliding mode control) of a motor-flexible beam system with nonlinear friction. Specifically, he developed and analyzed mathematical models for a slewing motor-beam system with the inclusion of nonlinear friction and extended these models to multi-link flexible robotic manipulators. He implemented control strategies on an experimental rig to control the motor-beam system and verified the theoretical predications. Working at Veridian Transportation Division, he developed a theory for Automated Highway System (AHS) capacity and originated a computer program for calculating multiple collisions of closely space vehicles. He investigated the effects of collision impacts on a string of vehicles and designed entry/exit strategies for vehicles entering and leaving the AHS lanes. Working at Veridian Flight Research, Dr. Crassidis significantly contributed to the F 22, LCA, JSF and X 38 in flight simulation programs on the Veridian operated Variable stability In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft (VISTA). Specifically, he derived control laws and evaluated flight test data among other things. During this period, he also developed an improved aircraft parameter identification algorithm and successfully applied this algorithm to the VISTA for the F 22, LCA, JSF and the X 38 in-flight simulation programs. Recently, Dr. Crassidis developed a model-following control strategy using an augmented version of sliding mode control for use in VISTA and the VAAC Harrier in-flight simulator test aircraft. The new control method was applied to the Lockheed-Martin Joint Strike Fighter in-flight simulation program on the VISTA.

Dr. Crassidis’s current focus is in the area aircraft flight control systems and the design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). He is currently conducting research in the development of a system that will allow Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to operate autonomously (without direct control of an operator) within the National Airspace System (NAS). The concept/approach utilizes a voice recognition system that transcribes Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) verbal commands into digital commands, a voice synthesis system that acknowledges the UAVs interpretation of the ATC commands, and a flight control system that interprets the appropriate ATC digital commands, converts these commands into specific UAV control system commands (attitude, speed, position), navigates the UAV through the sky and executes takeoffs, landings and taxi operations.