engineering

Masayoshi Tomizuka

Masayoshi Tomizuka is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Masayoshi Tomizuka rather than just read about it. In short: Masayoshi Tomizuka is a professor in Control Theory in Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley. He holds the Cheryl and John Neerhout, Jr., Distinguished Professorship Chair.

Key takeaways

Masayoshi Tomizuka belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Masayoshi Tomizuka to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Masayoshi Tomizuka from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Masayoshi Tomizuka is a professor in Control Theory in Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley. He holds the Cheryl and John Neerhout, Jr., Distinguished Professorship Chair. Tomizuka received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from Keio University, Tokyo, Japan in 1968 and 1970, and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in February 1974. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2022.

Career Tomizuka joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1974. He served as vice chair of mechanical engineering in charge of instruction from December 1989 to December 1991, and as vice chair in charge of graduate studies from July 1995 to December 1996. Since June 11, 2009, he has been executive associate dean for the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley. He also served as program director of the Dynamic Systems and Control Program at the National Science Foundation from Sept. 2002 to Dec. 2004.

Research interests Tomizuka's current research interests include optimal and adaptive control, digital control, signal processing, motion control, and control problems related to robotics, manufacturing, data storage devices, vehicles and human-machine systems.

Society activities Tomizuka has been and is an active member of the Dynamic Systems and Control Division (DSCD) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He served as chairman of the executive committee of the Division (1986–87), Technical Editor of the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, J-DSMC (1988–93) and editor-in-chief of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (1997–99). He served as president of the American Automatic Control Council (1998–99). He chairs the IFAC Technical Committee on Mechatronic Systems. He is a Fellow of the ASME, the Institute of Electric and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He is the recipient of the Best J-DSMC Best Paper Award (1995), the DSCD Outstanding Investigator Award (1996), the Pi Tau Sigma-ASME Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award (1997), the DSCD Leadership Award (2000), the Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2002) and the John R. Ragazzini Award (2006). The Oldenburger Medal was awarded to him for his seminal contributions in the area of adaptive control, preview control and zero-phase control.

References

External links Prof. Tomizuka's Personal Page Prof. Tomizuka's Research Lab Prof. Tomizuka's Curriculum Vitae Selected Publications of Prof. Tomizuka

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Masayoshi Tomizuka

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Masayoshi Tomizuka claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Masayoshi Tomizuka before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Masayoshi Tomizuka ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Masayoshi Tomizuka

In research: Masayoshi Tomizuka appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Masayoshi Tomizuka in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Masayoshi Tomizuka is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1946 births, Academics from Tokyo, American academics of Japanese descent, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Masayoshi Tomizuka outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Masayoshi Tomizuka in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Masayoshi Tomizuka means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Masayoshi Tomizuka out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Masayoshi Tomizuka in simple terms?

Why does Masayoshi Tomizuka matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Masayoshi Tomizuka?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Masayoshi Tomizuka.