Cornel Sultan

Assistant Professor

Research Expertise

Dynamics and Control

Professional History

• 2010 - Present, Assistant Professor, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Virginia Tech.
• 2004 - 2007 Staff Engineer, United Technologies Research Center, Hartford, CT
• 2001 - 2004 Research Engineer (Consultant/Full Time), SSCI, Woburn, MA
• 2001 - 2003 Research Fellow, Harvard University Medical School, Boston, MA
• 1999 - 2001 Research Engineer, Tensegra Inc. (start-up), Boston, MA

Awards and Honors

• 2012: Virginia Tech VP for Research Scholar of the Week
• 2011: Dean's Award for Outstanding New Assistant Professor
• 2010: NSF CAREER Award
• 2009: NASA Virginia Space Grant New Investigator Award
• 2009: ICTAS Junior Faculty Award

Professional Leadership

• Senior member AIAA, IEEE
• Member SIAM, ASEE

Research Interests

Rotorcraft Dynamics and Control

Complex physics based, control oriented models are developed to accurately capture “essential” rotorcraft dynamics (i.e. beyond flight dynamics modes).  

These models are further used in advanced control for steady and maneuvering flight, failure management via control adaptation, integrated helicopter and control design, and estimation.

Tensegrity Structures

Modeling, design, and control of tensegrity structures is further advanced seeking inspiration from biological systems.

Applications are investigated in many areas, such as robotics, bio-engineering, energy harvesting.

Planning and Coordination

Path planning and trajectory generation algorithms for large scale, multi-agent networks are developed.

Numerically robust and fast algorithms development is the main focus, in some instances using inspiration from biology.

Energy Harvesting

Development of systems for energy harvesting from large amplitude vibrations of mechanical systems is investigated.