Graduate / Electrical Engineering-Control Systems-Robotic-Fall 2014 ;SOP/ Berkeley [4]

I have wrote my SOP and PHS for Berkeley and they exceed two allowed pages. I have many important points to put in my SOP and I want you to help me to cut some parts of it and conclude with a TWO page SOP. I also want your comments on the structure of my SOP. Your help will be appreciated.

Thanks

My Statement of Purpose for Berkeley- Electrical Engineering-Control Systems-Robotic-Fall 2014 application season

Statement of Purpose

When I was eleven, my brother married and granted me something that changed my life: a laboratory of electricity with about hundreds of books about mathematics and electricity and a tiny robot that was the most memorable toy of my whole life. Some of my best days were spent in my lab on arranging and reading his books and working with electricity staff especially electrical kits. Since then, I wanted to be an electrical engineer.

My area of specialization in the graduate program in the department of electrical engineering at University of California at Berkeley will be in Control, Intelligent Systems, and Robotics (CIR). I first became interested in control systems during my undergraduate. An internship at the PBF incorporation confirmed my commitment to pursuing graduate study in control systems with a university that offers a wide range of edge-cutting theoretical and practical academic studies. In undergraduate study at Tabriz University I pursued research in robotics, designing and developing interface, software and controller for GRYPHON robot as a class project in Digital Control systems. I also organized and led a group of five undergraduate students to work voluntarily on the intelligent robots capable of recognizing their masters. We talked to the professors so much and had weekly sessions. Through these two projects I learned dominating mathematics over robots, how to design controller for a robot and how to inspire from animals to design intelligent robots. I also organized student sessions and meetings to discuss social conditions in the universities in Iran. In the fourth year, when students of our University get involved in research activity, Professor Hasanzadeh suggested to be my supervisor to work on autonomous robotic systems. Under his guidance I wrote my thesis "Research on the Geometry Recognition Strategies in Ants and its Applications in Autonomous Robots" and defended it with Honors. Afterwards I found a work of Dr. Simon at New Jersey Institute of Technology in some aspects the same as mine and started to collaborate with him. My task was to find some sets of strategies of path finding based on geometry recognition ability and the ways through which they could be applied to autonomous robots. In this work, I designed some kinds of mazes and analyzed the behavior of ants under different conditions and several simulations were performed to confirm the authenticity of the experimental results. During this work I acquired a broad range of research experience and background, necessary for further research in robotic.

In mathematics I and II I earned first ranked grade. I used to spend my time in the library of department of mathematic and that of electrical engineering department. With this strong performance, Professor Jodeiri suggested me the Teacher Assistantship position. I was responsible for solving almost all the problems of Thomson math book. Since fourth semester I started to do research about the semiconductor devices, as a class project. I used to spend most of my time at the library and study reference books in electronics. I earned the first ranked grade in the class and this project announced as the best student project for electronic I. This research continued the next semester and I earned first ranked grade in the class and announced as the best student project again. I don't forget these two classes in which the only student who became a volunteer to make a presentation was me and Dr. Veladi from Imperial college of London used my slides to say more deep information. It was a long term research project and I used to make presentations every day in the department to teach the achievements which were confirmed by the faculty members. During this research I read more than 70 reference books about electronics and discussed with more than seven professors and faculty members and they made contributions and gave comments, periodically. After my presentation Dr. Veladi suggested me to publish the results as a book. Wow, I was really surprised. I served as TA for electronic I and Computer-aided design for the next semester and started to write the book. After many meetings with faculty members, I graduated and the book was still halfway. I started graduate study but was still working on the book and had monthly connections with Dr. Veladi. Finally in 2011 after the revisions made by Dr. Veladi and Professor Abedi, the book was published. The book was entitled "Basic Electronics" and Professor Abedi -a full professor in Amirkabir University of Technology, sponsored it and undertook all the expenses. I believed that a big part of my undergraduate research work is experience and insight about how research is accurately done; publishing a book promoted my self confidence for future succeeds and I really understands research and work independently. Because of the time-management and timetable planning I've made, these time consuming research and work, did not affect my academic performance and my GPA remained almost stable and I ranked among top three students in the faculty in undergraduate study. I then get admitted to the Amirkabir University of Technology in which I had the honor to work with world-class faculty members. When I first arrived at Amirkabir, I was interested in both theoretical control systems and robotics. Control systems appealed to me in particular because it has a broad application in engineering fields and mathematics. Robotics appealed to me because I enjoyed working with larger teams, and I liked the challenge of making things work in a complicated environment. In fact I found a triangle with math, control systems and robotic as three vertices.

During my first year at Amirkabir, I suggested a proposal of an expository paper on travelling salesman problem to Professor Menhaj and wrote it under his supervision. Studying at Amirkabir acquainted me with many experiences, as I applied for a Teaching Assistantship position within the greeting week of attendance. I did the interview well and undertake the responsibility of teaching assistantship of Computer programming for almost 100 top ranked freshman students who have come from Iran's top high schools. This responsibility required self confidence, class management ability and communication skills. In first year, I also worked on a Carpet-Washer robot and a Network-Based control platform for robotic systems. The controllers and monitoring platform were microprocessor and Labview. The results and procedures were presented as conference papers. I learned to design interfaces between mechanical and electrical parts and control a robot using Data Socket Protocol and internet. The most important class project I've cope with was PA10 7-DOF redundant robotic arm for which I've developed a new modified redundancy resolution scheme to increase singularity avoidance as an extra task. Through this project I learned to utilize redundancy to avoid singularity and obstacles and I wrote a conference paper on the results. I then worked on MELFA Mitsubishi robot as a class project in Advanced Industrial Control Systems for which I served as the teacher assistant in the next semester. This TA responsibility was to teaching and problem solving for almost 60 students. The materials were different types of classic and modern controllers, modeling of advanced systems, PLCs, Advanced Controller design and applications. I also designed lab notes for Industrial Robotic Laboratory all of which under the supervision of Dr. Samadi. I also served as TA for electronics, during three consecutive semesters. During the last semester I had the honor of being TA of Professor Talebi for advanced robotic systems for graduate students. It was really exciting and honorific experience to me. These several assistantships required good relationships between me and the faculty members and it implies their credence on me for research, teaching and responsibility commitment over time alongside good academic records and communication skills. All these experiences helped me clarify my academic interests.

Having worked part time as a lecturer, throughout my university study, I have demonstrated the hard work, time-management and flexibility which I believe are essential to success in a graduate study at Berkeley. As an active member of the student scientific society, I also have a good understanding of the skills required to develop communities and establish university-industry connections, based on the student involvement. I work well in teams and have gained useful leadership skills as director of the industry-university connections division of the scientific society, the manager of the local charity and voluntary organization and most importantly the leader of the university robotic team, comprising of several graduate students and engineers. This required excellent communication and motivational skills to inspire the team to achieve third place in the recent international AUTCUP robotic contest. My scores may not speak too much everything about my academic and practical abilities but time management helped me to handle these time consuming research and work and my GPA remained almost stable the same as my undergraduate GPA. Apparently, spending all the time, merely on the class materials would tend to an excellent GPA.

I am particularly keen to join electrical engineering department of university of Berkeley because of the unique position the department holds in intelligent control systems and robotic, with a genuine and proven commitment to cutting-edge research and world-class graduate study and faculty members. The astute governance of the department has enabled electrical engineering department of Berkeley to stay ahead in the competitive sector especially in control systems and robotic and also to undertake a regular investment in existing and new research areas. As you can see from my CV, I have developed a range of skills and experiences which I believe will enable me to succeed on your graduate program. In my work experience, I have excelled in developing software, controllers and interfaces for controlling and monitoring purposes especially for robotic systems.

After graduation from Amirkabir in 2012, I served a lecturer position at Shahab Danesh University at which I was previously a part time lecturer. At Shahab Danesh, I taught Robotic, Industrial Control, Electronic, Electrical systems, Microprocessors, Laboratory of Robotic, electronic, digital circuits, instrumentation, electrical measurement, PLC, industrial systems. I also get involved in industrial projects. Teaching at university and working in industry, I came to the conclusion that I should study toward PhD and Post-Doc in control systems and robotic in a top ranked world-class university and learn as many as possible from the leading professors in the field. In particular, I realized that I wanted my graduate research to be more directly connected to reality and modern achievements and that I really like to work in an academic environment as a professor of control and robotic systems. After graduation I did not stop and I conducted the robotic team with a Snake robot in 2012 national contest in which we won third place award. In 2013 we are preparing for the proceeding national robotic contest with two-wheeled Segway robot.

At Berkeley, I hope to work closely with Professors Tomlin, Sastry, Goldberg, Fearing, and Abbeel. Professor Tomlin's work on the boundary of theory and practice just as my interests and work is right now, and I would love to work on problems in hybrid control Systems, nonlinear control systems with applications in robotic and biology. Her project entitled "The Test bed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent Control (STARMAC)" has fascinated me as a practical demonstration of theory and science with steps ahead of Quadrotor. I also like to work on issues in nonlinear and adaptive control, robotic and control of hybrid systems in which Professor Sastry have established a connection between theory and practice. I love to cooperate in their works especially the bio-inspired ones. I am interested to work with Professor Goldberg whose work on robotics has encouraged me to follow his papers and projects since 2011. I even discussed his researches and works with professor Moradi in Tehran university, who was one of the previous post-doc students of Professor Goldberg. I am also interested to work on milli-robotics, like flying and crawling milli-robots; Research projects leading by Professor Fearing. These are state-of-the-art researches in robotic which encourage me to focus on. I think these flying milli-robots would tend to personal flying robots (PFR) for the human to be used instead of automobiles. The optimization works by professor Abbeel are very interesting to me too especially "robust handling of uncertainty in robotic control" is of my core interests.

My current research work is devoted to design a new structure for two-wheeled Segway balancing robot and implement a predictive control with minimum Gyroscope sensors. The main task is to become familiar with ideas and approaches introduced in the literature and to improve the results obtained. One of the most challenging tasks in the project is to digitalize the control algorithm and implement it via microprocessor with the noise cancelation. I also work on uncertain robotic systems and intelligent robust adaptive controllers. Control systems and Robotic are of particular interest to me and I plan to continue my scientific career in these fields. I have the strongest incentive to advance as far as I can in this captivating science and feel confident that application to the University of California at Berkeley is the best possible step to accomplish it. I would regard my admission to your University not only as a great honor but also as a great responsibility and an obligation to work hard.

Jacob Haji 10/15/2013