RIT - Department of Mechanical Engineering | People | Faculty

Tuhin Das Tuhin Das

Assistant Professor
Phone: 585-475-
E-mail:
Office: 2181 Gleason

Biography:
Tuhin Das is an assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Das received his Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1997 and MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University in 2000 and 2002 respectively. From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Das was a Control Systems Engineer at Emmeskay, Inc. in Plymouth, MI, and from 2006 to 2007, he was a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University in the Mechanical Engineering department.

Dr. Das’ research interests are in the area of dynamic systems analysis, modeling, simulation and control. His doctoral research was in the area of non-holonomic systems. In particular, he addressed mechanism development, dynamic analysis and control design of a spherical mobile robot. During his graduate research, he also developed optimal trajectory control strategies for hot air balloons. Dr. Das has also carried out research in the area of motion planning of rolling sphere and has developed a novel geometric algorithm for complete reconfiguration of the spherical robot. In collaboration with Dr. Ranjan Mukherjee of Michigan State University, Dr. Das investigated the control of switched systems. Specifically, he has developed a general theoretical framework for observer based control of systems with reversible transducers using the approach of shared-sensing. At Emmeskay, Dr. Das developed expertise in modeling, simulation and control of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) systems, Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) systems and automotive power-trains. Over the span of a number of collaborative efforts with industry partners and academic institutions, Dr. Das has implemented real-time fuel cell simulation platforms, developed and tested fuel cell control algorithms, and has implemented automated control verification, fault identification and diagnostics tools for SOFC systems.

Dr. Das has continued research in the area of fuel cell systems. He is currently developing an architecture for generating flexible and scalable fuel cell system models. At present, a comprehensive steam-reformer based SOFC system model is implemented. Dr. Das is currently pursuing analytical and simulation based research towards transient characterization and observer designs for reformer based SOFC system. Dr. Das is keenly interested in broadening his current fuel cells research to systems analysis, optimization and control of hybrid energy systems. He also plans to continue research in robotics and continuously strive to explore novel research areas.

Dr. Das is keen on integrating education and research. In this regard, he plans to develop a laboratory for fuel cell/alternate energy research and teaching. He is interested in enhancing fuel cells education in undergraduate and graduate curriculum through design of laboratory components in the existing engineering curriculum and through development of new and advanced courses in this area. Additionally, Dr. Das plans to teach fundamental and advanced courses in statics, dynamics and controls at the undergraduate and graduate levels.