Faculty Directory

Nikhil Chopra received his Bachelor of Technology (Honors) degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 2001 and his Ph.D. degree in Systems and Entrepreneurial Engineering in 2006 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2006-2007. He is a full Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated with the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Chopra's research interests are in developing a fundamental understanding of control of networked autonomous systems. The work is motivated by applications in networked control of robotic systems and mixed human-robot teams.

He was awarded the William A. Chittenden Award for outstanding graduate research and the Vodafone Graduate Fellowship in 2003.  Co-Chair, IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Telerobotics, Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Automatica, SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, Asian Journal of Control and Mechatronics.

Education

• Postdoctoral Research Associate, Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006-2007.
• Ph.D., Systems and Entrepreneurial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.
• Bachelor of Technology (Honors), Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, 2001.

Honors and awards

William A. Chittenden Award for outstanding graduate research and the Vodafone Graduate Fellowship, 2003.

Professional memberships

• IEEE
• ASME
• Co-Chair, IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Telerobotics
• Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Automatica, SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, Asian Journal of Control and Mechatronics

Dynamics and control, robotics, control of networked autonomous systems; control of mixed human-robot teams; machine learning

• T. Hatanaka, N. Chopra, J. Yamauchi,  and M. Fujita, M, "A Passivity-Based Approach to Human–Swarm Collaboration and Passivity Analysis of Human Operators," In Trends in Control and Decision-Making for Human–Robot Collaboration Systems (pp. 325-355). Springer International Publishing, 2017.

• Y. Dong, N. Gupta, and N. Chopra. "Content modification attacks on consensus seeking multi-agent system with double-integrator dynamics." Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 26.11 (2016): 116305.

• T.  Hatanaka, N. Chopra, M. Fujita, and M.W. Spong, Passivity-Based Control and Estimation in Networked Robotics, Springer, 2015.

• P. Tallapragada and N. Chopra, “Decentralized Event-Triggering for Control of Nonlinear Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 59, No.12, pp.3312-3324, Dec. 2014.

• Y-C. Liu and N. Chopra, “Synchronization of Networked Mechanical Systems with Communication Delays and Human Input,” ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, Vol. 135, No. 4, 2013.
• L. Sabattini, N. Chopra, and C. Secchi, “Decentralized Connectivity Maintenance for Cooperative Control of Mobile Robotic Systems,” International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 32, No.12, pp. 1411-1423, 2013.
• L. Sabattini, N. Chopra, and C. Secchi, “Decentralized Connectivity Maintenance for Cooperative Control of Mobile Robotic Systems,” International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 32, No.11, September 2013.
• P. Tallapragada and N. Chopra, “On Event-Triggered Tracking for Nonlinear Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 58, No. 9, pp. 2343-2348, 2013.

• N. Chopra, "Output Synchronization on Strongly Connected Graphs," IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Accepted, 2012.

2009

• N. Chopra and M.W. Spong, "On Exponential Synchronization of Kuramoto Oscillators," IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 353 – 357, 2009.

2008

• N. Chopra, P. Berestesky, and M.W. Spong, "Bilateral Teleoperation over Unreliable Communication Networks," IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 304-313, 2008.
• N. Chopra, M.W. Spong, and R. Lozano, "Synchronization of Bilateral Teleoperators with Time Delay," Automatica, Vol. 44, No. 8, pp. 2142-2148, 2008.

2006

• N. Chopra and M.W. Spong, "Passivity-Based Control of Multi-Agent Systems," in Advances in Robot Control, From Everyday Physics to Human-Like Movements, Sadao Kawamura and Mikhail Svinin, Eds., pp. 107-134, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2006.
• N. Chopra, M.W. Spong, R. Ortega, and N.E. Barabanov, "On Tracking Performance in Bilateral Teleoperation," IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 22, pp. 861-866, 2006.