Ilya Kolmanovsky selected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI)
U-M professor acknowledged for his innovations in addressing control challenges of advanced automotive and aerospace systems
The NAI Fellows Program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society. Election as an NAI Fellow is the highest professional distinction awarded to academic inventors.
Ilya Kolmanovsky’s research focuses on control theory and methods for systems with state and control constraints and on control of advanced aerospace and automotive systems. His recent publications address challenges in spacecraft orbital and attitude control, in control of flexible aircraft, in control of engines and propulsion systems, and in autonomous driving.
Professor Kolmanovsky is a former graduate of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and has spent close to 15 years of his subsequent professional career at Ford Research and Advanced Engineering in Dearborn, Michigan addressing challenges in controlling advanced powertrain and propulsion systems. Professor Kolmanovsky re-joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering as a professor in January of 2010.
To date, NAI Fellows hold more than 58,000 issued U.S. patents, which have generated over 13,000 licensed technologies and companies, and created more than one million jobs. In addition, over $3 trillion in revenue has been generated based on NAI Fellow discoveries.
Kolmanovsky’s long list of innovations and patents is centered around methods and algorithms for engine and powertrain control to improve engine/powertrain transient response, increase fuel/energy efficiency and reduce pollutant emissions. Others develop algorithms for fuel efficient cruise control and Model Predictive Control. His research emphasized exploiting synergies between advances in control theory and real-world control applications. He has had many collaborations with industry.
The 2022 Fellow class hails from 110 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes worldwide. They collectively hold over 4,800 issued U.S. patents. Among the new class of Fellows are members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Fellows of AAAS and other prestigious organizations, Nobel Laureates, other honors and distinctions, as well as senior leadership from universities and research institutions. Their body of research and entrepreneurship covers a broad range of scientific disciplines involved with technology transfer of their inventions for the benefit of society. The 2022 class of Fellows will be inducted at the Fellows Induction Ceremony at the 12th Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Inventors on June 27th, 2023 in Washington, D.C. The complete list of NAI Fellows is available here.