Prashant Mehta

Prashant Mehta is a Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory. His research focuses on controlled interacting particle systems and machine learning applications, particularly in human activity recognition using motion sensors.

• Education:
  • Ph.D. in Mathematics, Cornell University (2004)
  • M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst (1996)
  • B.E. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology & Sciences (1993)

Mehta's work has pioneered the feedback particle filter (FPF) algorithm for nonlinear estimation, applied in robotic systems and gesture recognition. His research spans control of combustion instabilities in jet engines, mean-field games, and dynamical systems in aerospace engineering.

His publications emphasize nonlinear control theory and stochastic filtering, with recent trends in sensor data pattern recognition and cyber-physical systems. He has received multiple scientific awards, including the MURI award for the Cyberoctopus project and Excellence in Undergraduate Advising Awards.

• Scientific Honors:
  • MURI Award (2019) for Cyberoctopus
  • Excellence in Undergraduate Advising (2010, 2008)
  • Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award (1994)
  • Senior Member, IEEE Control Systems Society
  • Member, ASME Energy Systems Subcommittee
  • Member, SIAM Dynamical Systems Group

Mehta has supervised students like Jin Kim (IEEE CDC Best Student Paper, 2019) and co-founded the startup Rithmio, acquired by Bosch Sensortec. His laboratory develops gesture-detection filters for applications in soft robotics and human-machine interfaces.