Michael D. Sidman, Ph.D.

SIDMAN Engineering, INC.

Mechatronics  ▪  Motor & Motion Control  ▪  Servo Systems

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Education and Academic Awards
U.S. Patents
Selected Publications
Selected Courses and Seminars
Professional Activities and Society Memberships

Education and Academic Honors

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 1986

  • Dissertation: Adaptive Control of a Flexible Structure
  • Digital Equipment Corporation Fellow and University Resident 1983-86
  • Developed a high-performance self-tuning adaptive digital control system 
    for a lightly-damped mechanism in the Stanford Aerospace Robotics Lab.
  • Developed a robotic optical robotic end-point sensor.

M.S.E.E. and B.S.E.E., Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 1975

  • Graduated with Highest Honor
  • Combined BS/MS Five Year Cooperative Education Honors Program
  • Recipient:
            The Northeastern University Cooperative Education Award
            The Northeastern University Sears B. Condit Scholarship Award
            The Tau Beta Pi William M. Rand Award
            The Electrical Manufacturer’s Representatives Club of New England Scholarship Award
  • Member, National Honor Societies:
            Phi Kappa Phi (Interdisciplinary)
            Tau Beta Pi (Engineering)
            Eta Kappa Nu (Electrical Engineering)
  • President, Tau Beta Pi, National Engineering Honor Society, Northeastern University Chapter, 1974-75

U.S. Patents

Named inventor on eighteen U.S. patents. Sole inventor except as noted:

  • Integral-Cycling (Solid State) Relay, 4,153,870, 5/79
  • Dynamic Filter For A Moving Head Disk Storage System, 4,172,267, 10/79
  • Adaptive Misposition Correcting Method For Magnetic Disk Servo System, 4,536,809, 8/85
  • Velocity Estimator in a Disk Drive Positioning System, 5,095,471, 3/92
  • Methods of Automatic Gain Control Basis Selection Half-Track Servoing, 5,099,367, 3/92
  • Continuous-Plus-Embedded Servo System For Magnetic Disk Device, 5,109,307, 4/92
  • Fault Tolerant Frame, Guardband and Index Detection Methods, 5,115,359, 5/92
  • Embedded Burst Demodulation Methods, 5,115,360, 5/92
  • Track Identification and Counting in a Disk Drive Positioning System, 5,136,440, 8/92
  • Self-Tuning Adaptive Bandwidth Regulator (principal inventor), 5,155,422, 10/92
  • Extended Range Servo System for Positioning a Disk Drive Head Over a Selected Track, 5,153,786, 10/92
  • Combination Embedded and Dedicated Servo System, 5,153,787, 10/92
  • High Speed Switched Automatic Gain Control, 5,187,619, 2/93
  • Methods of Writing and Detecting Dibit Servo Encoding, 5,202,802, 4/93
  • Disk Drive with Constant Bandwidth Automatic Gain Control, 5,220,468, 6/93
  • Automatic Correction of Position Demodulator Offsets. 5,247,398, 9/93
  • Active Disturbance Compensation System For Disk Drives (principal inventor) 5,426,545, 6/95
  • Robust Active Damping Control System (principal inventor) 5,459,383 10/95

Selected Publications

Design Tool Speeds Development and Optimization of Electromechanical Products using AC Induction Motor Vector Control
Power Conversion & Intelligent Motion (PCIM) Magazine, 6/96.

Time Optimal Voltage-Constrained Deceleration Velocity Profile Design for Disk Drives
Invited Paper, 1995 American Control Conference, Seattle, WA, 6/95, pp. 4146-4150.

Control Design Made Faster and More Effective
Invited Paper, MATLAB News and Notes, Summer/Fall 1994, pp. 8-9.

Active Compensation for Shock, Vibration, and Wind-up in Disk Drives
with D. Davies, M.I.T.
ASME Winter Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA 12/91.
Advances in Information Storage Systems, ASME Press, Vol. 5, 1993, pp. 5-20.

Control Systems Technology in Digital’s Disk Drives
Digital Technical Journal, No. 8, 2/89, pp. 61-73.

Parametric System Identification on Logarithmic Frequency-Response Data
with G. Verghese, M.I.T. and F. DeAngelis, M.I.T.
Proceedings of the American Control Conference, San Diego, CA , 5/90, pp. 1888-1892.
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 36, No. 9, 9/91, pp. 1065-1070.

Convergence Properties of an Adaptive Runout Correction System for Disk Drives
ASME Winter Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX, 11/90.
Adaptive and Learning Control, ASME DSC-Vol. 21, 12/91, pp. 55-62.
Advances in Information Storage Systems, ASME Press, Vol. 1, 1991, pp. 61-78.

Adaptive Runout Correction System for Disk Drives
Proceedings of the ASME International Symposium on Robotics and Manufacturing Research,
Albuquerque NM, 11/88, pp. 1027-1036.

Adaptive Control of a Flexible Structure
Ph.D. Dissertation, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, 6/86.
Stanford Guidance and Control Lab. Report 556, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 6/86.

Adaptive Control of a Flexible Structure
with G. Franklin, Stanford University.
Proceedings of 2nd IFAC Workshop on Adaptive Systems in Control and Signal Processing, Lund, Sweden, 7/86, pp. 131-136.

An Adaptive Filter for the Processing of Position Error Signal in Disk Drives
IEEE Applied Magnetics Workshop on Magnetic Recording, San Francisco, CA, 6/78.
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 7/78, pp. 185-187.

Selected Courses, Seminars and Presentations

Digital Servo Systems Short Courses
on-site at companies worldwide. 1986 - present
Taught to engineers and technical managers involved in digital servo positioning system 
product design in a wide variety of industries.

MATLAB/SIMULINK/Toolbox Laboratory Training Courses
on-site at companies worldwide. 1993 - present
Introductory, intermediate and advanced courses for wide range of industries.

The MathWorks Storage Systems Design Seminar
Santa Clara and Costa Mesa, CA and Boulder, CO 9/98.

Short Course on Servo Position Transduction in Magnetic Recording Machines
At Quantum Corp., Boulder, CO and via video teleconference to Shrewsbury, MA 12/97.

AC Induction Motor Vector Control Simulation and Design Tool
Powersystems World '96 Conference, Las Vegas, NV, 9/96.

Advances in Control Theory: Digital Servo Control in Disk Drives
Invited speaker, Intermag ‘92 Executive Seminar, St. Louis, MO, 4/92.

The Impact of DSP on Future Generation Hard Disk Drives
Invited instructor, Santa Clara University, School of Engineering, 12/91.

Overview and Limitations of Current Servo Technology in Information Storage Systems
NSF/NSIC Workshop on Applications of MEMS in Storage Systems, UCLA, 7/91.

Advanced Servo Techniques for Optical and Magnetic Disk Drives
Instructor, Advanced Topics in Storage Technology Series , ECEN 5010 (televised), Center for
Advanced Training in Engineering and Computer Sciences, U. of Colorado at Boulder, 3/90.

Adaptive Runout Correction System for Disk Drives
DEC Storage Systems Technical Seminar Series, Digital Equipment Corp., 11/89.
Seminar, Laser Magnetic Storage International (Philips), 2/90.

Convergence Properties of an Adaptive Runout Correction System for Disk Drives
Control Seminar, University of Colorado at Boulder, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 10/89.
Mechanical Engineering Seminar, Computer Mechanics Lab., Dept. of Mech. Eng., U. C. Berkeley, 4/90.
Control Systems Seminar, Dept. of Manufacturing Engineering, Boston University, 11/89.

Optimal Control, Instructor, EE597 Graduate Course
College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs., Spring 1989.

Adaptive Control of a Flexible Structure
Colloquium, Center for Space Structures and Controls, U. of Colorado at Boulder, 11/87.
Second Annual Symposium, Stanford Institute for Manufacturing and Automation (SIMA), 4/86.
Stanford Information Systems Laboratory EE370 Seminar, 11/85
Invited speaker, Control Systems Seminar, Martin Marietta, Denver, CO, 1987
Engineering Seminars, Digital Equipment Corp., 1983-1986.

Disk Technology Trends and Servo Systems
Invited speaker, Univ. of Nebraska IEEE Section, 5/80.

Founded and hosted Digital Equipment Corporation's Servo-Mechanical Seminar Series 1986-92.


Professional Activities and Society Memberships

Listed in Marquis Who'sWho in Science and Engineering 

Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  Member, IEEE Control Systems Society

Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME International)
  Member, ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division
  Past ASME Pikes Peak Section positions:
    Chairman,  Pikes Peak Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2002-2003
    Co-Chairman,  Pikes Peak Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2001-2002

Appointed Associate Professor Adjoint, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 1993
  Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering and Applied Science

Past member, General Engineering Board of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, 
  University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Third Party Provider to The MathWorks, Inc. 

Chairman, National Storage Industry Consortium Disk Mechanics Task Force, 1991

Associate Editor, ASME Journal: Advances in Information Storage Systems, 1990-92

Conference Session Chairman:

  • PowerSystems World '96 Conference, Motion Controllers/Drives
  • 1990 ASME Winter Annual Meeting: Adaptive and Repetitive Control
  • 1991 ASME Winter Annual Meeting: Dynamics and Control in Information Storage Systems

Digital Equipment Corporation Representative to:

  • National Storage Industry Consortium (NSIC), 1991-92

Digital Equipment Corporation Representative and founding sponsor to:

  • Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC), 1989-92
  • Stanford’s Information Systems Laboratory (ISL), 1990-92

Founder and host of Digital Equipment Corporation’s Servo/Mechanical Seminar Series, 1986-92
   featuring leading researchers from universities and industry

Sponsor of scholarship and equipment for a quadriplegic Ph.D. candidate in control systems 
   at the University of Colorado

Sponsor of applied research of Presidential Young Investigators at Berkeley and Stanford

Recipient, Digital Equipment Corporation Cumulative Patent Awards, 1987 and 1990

Hadassah Associate, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center

Member, Japan-America Society of Southern Colorado (JASSC)

Board Member, Mentoring Program Chair and Outreach Chair, Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair (PPRSF)

Life Member, Stanford Alumni Association


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