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Hamza El-Kebir received the B.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, in 2020. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. His research interests are in safe control and estimation of uncertain safety critical systems, infinite-dimensional control of distributed parameter systems, and computational thermodynamics. Inspired by his research in fault detection and recovery and safe autonomous control, his current focus is on minimally invasive autonomous robotic surgery with strong safety guarantees and adaptation to patient-specific conditions.
I aim to establish a well-rounded research program in the field of robust adaptive control of complex and infinite-dimensional systems in unknown and delicate or hazardous environments. To date, I have developed and apply control methodologies based on guaranteed reachability, viability, and robust adaptive control theory to enable the development of safe autonomous systems that can robustly reason about and adapt to changes in their environment with applications to multi-agent cyber-physical systems, safe autonomous robotic surgery, and noninvasive tissue diagnostics. At present, I have produced real-time methods for adaptive control of electrosurgical processes with strong safety guarantees based on fundamental thermodynamics models, greatly reducing collateral damage. I am also working on safe collaborative precision robotics with visuotactile tool sharing during clinical interventions.