Galip Ulsoy

Ali Galip Ulsoy (born 1950) is an academic at the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, where he is the C.D. Mote Jr. Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and the William Clay Ford Professor Emeritus of Manufacturing.

He received a B.S. in Engineering from Swarthmore College in 1973. His M.S. in Mechanical Engineering was received from Cornell University in 1975. Ulsoy continued his Ph.D. studies in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and graduated in 1979. His thesis on Vibration and Stability of Bandsaw Blades was supervised by C. Daniel Mote Jr.

Career Ulsoy was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Material Science & Mineral Engineering in the University of California, Berkeley in 1979, A year later he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1986, and to full professor in 1992. In the years 1998-2001 Ulsoy served as the Chair of the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Michigan. During the years 1996-2016 Ulsoy held the William Clay Ford Professor of Manufacturing chair, and during 2009-2016 he was the C.D. Mote Jr. Distinguished University Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He retired in 2016 as an emeritus professor.

Ulsoy was the founding director of the Ground Robotics Reliability Center and Founding Deputy Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing System at the University of Michigan. He was also Director of the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems at the National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia, and a Visiting Researcher at the Ford Scientific Research Laboratories, Dearborn, Michigan.

He was also the founding editor of ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Magazine, and served as Editor of the ASME Transactions, Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, and as a member of the editorial board for several international journals. Ulsoy also served as the President of the American Automatic Control Council, which is the member organization representing the US in the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC).

He was a consultant for various companies and organizations, including: National Science Foundation, General Motors, LG Production Research, Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development, Sughrue Mion.

During his career, Ulsoy has advised 47 doctoral students and was co-author of five books, over 375 articles, and was a co-inventor on three USA and one European patents. According to Google Scholar (May 2022) he has more than 18,500 citations and his h-index is 68.

Research Ulsoy's research work focuses on several areas: dynamics and control (adaptive control, state derivative feedback, coupling between modeling and controller design, time-delayed systems), manufacturing automation (sawing, turning, milling, drilling, robotics, stamping), reconfigurable systems, mechatronics, automotive systems (accessory drive belts, active suspensions, vehicle lateral control) and other engineering systems, like disk drives and mineral processing operations.

His basic research contributions in dynamics and control have led to numerous best paper awards, and he is one of the first researchers to apply methods from advanced control theory to manufacturing systems.

His research work has had impact on industry: Accessory drive belts and active safety systems in automobiles worldwide utilize methods and technologies that he has developed. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems, of which he is a co-inventor, have been widely adopted in industry.

Upon receiving the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK) Special Award in 2012, his research work was described:

Publications Books

Selected articles

Honors and awards

Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), 1993. Fellow, Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), 1996. Rudolf Kalman Best Paper Award for ASME J. Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, 2003 and 2016. Member, National Academy for Engineering, “For research on the dynamics and control of axially moving elastic materials and their implementation in automotive and manufacturing systems”, 2006. Rufus T. Oldenburger Medal "For fundamental and wide-ranging contributions to the analysis and control of dynamic systems with a broad spectrum of applications, from automotive systems to manufacturing systems", ASME, 2008. Fellow, International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), 2010. Special Award from TÜBİTAK (Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council) presented by the President of Turkey, 2012. Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) “For contributions to flexible automation and manufacturing systems”, 2013. Hideo Hanafusa Outstanding Investigator Award in Flexible Automation, International Symposium on Flexible Automation, Awaji Island, Japan, 2014. Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award “For seminal research contributions with industrial impact in the dynamics and control of mechanical systems especially manufacturing systems and automotive systems”, American Automatic Control Council, 2020.

Personal life Galip Ulsoy is married to Susan K. Glowski. They have one daughter, Jessie E. Ulsoy and live in Dexter, Michigan.