James P. Millan 13 Merasheen Pl. St.John s, Newfoundland Canada A1E 5P5 T (709)-772-2472 B jim.millan@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca http:// www.nrc.ca/ iot http:// www.engr.mun.ca/ ~millan Citizenship Canadian and Irish. Education 2006 Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). 1984 B.Eng Electrical, Memorial University of Newfoundland. 2000 present Profile For over 26 years, I have been an enthusiastic practitioner, researcher and educator in the field of electrical engineering, particularly with applications to the performance assessment of marine vehicles and offshore structures. During my career, I have engaged in a wide variety of activities including design, research, application, evaluation, technology commercialization, industrial outreach, education and mentorship. Work Experience Senior Research Council Officer, Institute for Ocean Technology, National Research Council (NRC). Working with industrial, academic and government partners to research and develop technologies for the control of offshore marine structures and vessels. Performing numerical and physical modeling and full-scale sea trials of dynamically positioned vessels to evaluate control system designs and to ensure the performance and safety of these systems. 1992-1999 Group Leader, Electronics and Instrumentation, NRC. Budgeting, planning and scheduling instrumentation aspects of projects. Demonstrated effective leadership of a team of Technical Officers who deliver comprehensive electronics and instrumentation design services to the Institute. Provided strategic direction for the Institute s data acquisition and control systems.
1984-1992 Research Officer, Electronics and Instrumentation, NRC. Development of specialized instrumentation, control and data acquisition systems in support of model and full scale marine vessel testing. Preparation of specifications for instrument design and construction by external contractors. 2008 2006 Recent Projects Fuel Optimal Vessel Control. Working with voyage data recorder manufacturer to develop advanced control technology to reduce fuel consumption in ships. MCDV Roll Stabilization. Research and development and feasibility study of an advanced autopilot roll stabilization system for the Canadian Navy s Maritime Costal Defense Vessels. 2007 Lifeboat Launch Control System. Leading a team in the development of a patented lifeboat launch system that is designed to improve the safety and success rate of personnel evacuation from marine vessels and offshore structures 2007 FPSO Instability. Investigation of unstable heading change behaviour in an Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel. Analysis involves identification of factors contributing to the vessel instability and recommending control action to correct the problem. 2003 RAVEN Project. Collaborating with Defense Research Development Canada, Memorial University, Provincial Airlines Ltd. and others to create a viable civilian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programme. My work consists of developing hybrid control theory for safe and efficient UAV operations. Continuing 2005-present Technical Authority Technical and Academic Authority. Regular technical reviewer for Canadian Government research granting agencies. Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Control technology. Standards Organizations. Leader of the CSA working group for Stationkeeping of Floating Structures and member of ISO Floating Structures working group (ISO/TC67/SC7/WG5).
Doctoral Dissertation (Distinction) title supervisor Online Discrete Event Control of Hybrid Systems. The thesis develops a theory for computing supervisory discrete event controllers for complex systems with hybrid dynamics (mixed logical and continuous dynamics), while maintaining the safe operation of these systems. The theory is applied in a software package that uses both logical and continuous design constraints along with a hybrid system model and synthesizes a guaranteed-safe controller. The applicability of this technique is illustrated in simulation on a realistic and complex marine control application. (link) Dr. S. D. O Young. Awards 1998 Merit Award, Institute for Marine Dynamics. 2003 Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland. 2008 1987 1990 Teaching and Mentoring Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, MUN. Graduate Student Thesis Supervision Lecture University graduate and undergraduate students in electrical engineering Supervised more than 20 Engineering Work Term Students Mentor for Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Newfoundland and Labrador Advisor to many senior electrical engineering student projects Memberships Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Newfoundland and Labrador. Licensed to practice engineering in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador (P.Eng.) Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Senior Member. IEEE Control Systems Society. Marine Technology Society.
Selected Publications J. Millan, Online Discrete Event Control of Hybrid Systems. PhD thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2006. J. Millan and S. O Young, Online discrete event supervisory control of hybrid dynamical systems using embedded simulation, IFAC Journal of Control Engineering Practice, vol. 16, pp. 1004 1021, August 2008. M. Fatemi, J. Millan, J. Stevenson, T. Yu, and S. D. O Young, Discrete event control of an unmanned aircraft, in Proceedings of the IEEE 9th International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems WODES08, May 2008. J. Millan and S. O Young, Hybrid system control using an online discrete event supervisory strategy, in IFAC Conference on Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems, IFAC, June 2006. J. Millan and S. O Young, On-line supervisory control of hybrid systems using embedded simulations, in Proceedings of the IEEE 8th International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems WODES06, July 2006. J. Millan and S. O Young, Hybrid modeling of tandem dynamically positioned vessels, in Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, December 2000. J. Millan, S. Thistle, E. Thornhill, and D. Stredulinsky, Roll reduction control system characteristics of a vessel equipped with Z-drives, in 8th Canadian Marine Hydromechanics and Structures Conference, 2007. E. Thornhill, D. Bass, and J. Millan, Numerical prediction of z-drive roll reduction capability, in Proceedings of the 6th International Ship Stability Workshop, (New York), Webb Institute, October 2002. J. Millan, L. Smith, and S. O Young, Coordination of FPSO and tanker offloading operations, in MTS DP Conference 2002, Dynamic Positioning Committee, Marine Techincal Society, 2002. J. Milan, G. Janes, E. Kennedy, and D. Cumming, An advanced model autopilot control system, in Proceedings of the 27th American Tow Tank Conference, ATTC, August 2004. J. Millan, S. O Young, L. Smith, and M. Simms, Discrete event supervisory control for multiple vessels, in Proceedings of the 10th IEEE Newfoundland Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering CCECE97, November 2001. J. Millan and S. O Young, Coordinated control of a tanker and FPSO, in Proceedings of the IEEE NECEC 2000 Conference, November 2000. J. Millan, Thrust allocation techniques for dynamically positioned vessels, Laboratory Memorandum LM-2008-04, Institute for Ocean Technology, January 2008.
J. Millan, A. Butt, and S. Thistle, Kingston class vessels: An assessment of an active roll reduction control system, Technical Report TR-2008-04, Institute for Ocean Technology, March 2008. J. Millan, W. Raman-Nair, D. Colbourne, S. Thistle, and F. Davidson, Husky sea rose FPSO excessive heading change study, Technical Report TR-2007-17, Institute for Ocean Technology, St.John s, July 2007. Protected, Limited Distribution. J. Millan, E. Kennedy, G. Janes, and D. Cumming, An autopilot system for model testing, Laboratory Memorandum LM-2004-01, Institute for Ocean Technology, St.John s, Newfoundland, February 2004. Limited Distribution.