Associate Professors Huei Peng and Anna Stefanopoulou are the recipients of the 2004-05 ME Department Outstanding Achievement Awards.
Working as a team over the past few years, Stefanopoulou and Peng have played a key role in advancing the fuel cell research in the ME Department. They worked together on the modeling, analysis and control of fuel cell systems. They successfully established a 2.5kW PEM Fuel Cell Control Laboratory which is a unique resource in academic institutions. Their experimental results from this setup have provided very useful insight and have significantly helped to advance research of PEM fuel cell models. They also published together with their students a number of pioneer articles in fuel cells controls, including the book Control of Fuel Cell Power Systems : Principles, Modeling, Analysis and Feedback Design (Advances in Industrial Control).
Stefanopoulou and Peng’s work is clearly relevant to industry and society, and has significantly contributed to establishing the ME Department and CoE as a leading institution of research in automotive controls. They have addressed fundamental problems that have significant practical applications and are highly respected by academic researchers.
In parallel with their joint work, Professors Peng and Stefanopoulou have independently established themselves as experts in a range of vehicle and engine controls systems.
Peng has focused on modeling and control of vehicles with multiple power sources, including hybrid electric, hybrid hydraulic and fuel cell vehicles. Using his power management strategy, Eaton’s Innovation Center has demonstrated on a FedEx hybrid delivery truck a remarkable 45% fuel economy gain versus using the in-house strategy. Furthermore, Professor Peng has made significant contributions as Director of the Automotive Engineering program, including the co-development of the new M.Eng. in Global Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering to be launched globally in May 2005.
Stefanopoulou’s work focuses on control systems for automobile powertrains, with emphasis on the control of variable cam timing engines, electro-mechanical camless valvetrains and fuel cell stacks. In addition to her work on PEM fuel cells, Anna has successfully worked with United Technologies on the modeling and control of a solid oxide fuel cell with a natural gas reformer. She has previously been honored by the SAE Ralph Teetor Award, was named one of the “World’s Top 100 Young Innovators” by Technology Review, and is selected to receive the prestigious UM Henry Russel Award.
Professors Peng and Stefanopoulou were honored during the ME Department’s Outstanding Achievement awards banquet held Wednesday, March 23, 2005.
