engineering

Xiaobo Tan

Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan rather than just read about it. In short: Xiaobo Tan (born 1972 in Danyang, China) is a Chinese-American electrical engineer and professor at Michigan State University. He is an MSU Foundation Professor and the Richard M.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Xiaobo Tan (born 1972 in Danyang, China) is a Chinese-American electrical engineer and professor at Michigan State University. He is an MSU Foundation Professor and the Richard M. Hong Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering, and serves as the Director of the Smart Microsystems Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for his contributions to modeling and control of smart materials and underwater robotics.

Education and career Tan received a B.E. in automatic control from Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 1995 and an M.E. in automatic control from Tsinghua in 1998. He earned a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002, where he was advised by John S. Baras and P. S. Krishnaprasad. From 2002 to 2004, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland. Tan joined Michigan State University as an assistant professor in 2004. He is currently MSU Foundation Professor and the Richard M. Hong Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He also serves as Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Research Tan's research focuses on underwater robotics, soft robotics, electroactive polymer sensors and actuators, and modeling and control of systems with hysteresis. He directs the Smart Microsystems Laboratory at MSU, which develops bio-inspired underwater robots for mobile sensing applications. A project from his laboratory is GRACE (Gliding Robot ACE), a biomimetic robotic fish that uses electroactive polymers to propel itself through water. The robot is equipped with sensors to measure water temperature, quality, and other environmental data, and has been used to track fish populations and monitor invasive species in the Great Lakes. Tan has published over 300 papers and holds six U.S. patents in his research areas.

Awards and honors National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2006 Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, 2018 Withrow Distinguished Scholar Award (senior category), MSU College of Engineering, 2018 Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), 2019 Richard M. Hong Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering, Michigan State University, 2020 William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award, Michigan State University, 2023

Professional service Tan served as General Chair of the 2023 American Control Conference in San Diego and General Chair of the 2018 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference. He has also served as Program Chair of the 15th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (2011), Finance Chair of the 2015 American Control Conference, and Registration Chair of the 2016 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics. He has also served as a Senior Editor for IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics and an Associate Editor for Automatica. In 2024, he was elected Editor-in-Chief of IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, with his term beginning in January 2026. Since 2024, Tan has been a Member of the Board of Advisors at Motmot Inc., a Detroit-based company developing autonomous underwater robots for water infrastructure inspection.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Xiaobo Tan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan

In research: Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan 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: Xiaobo Tan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1972 births, American electrical engineers, Chinese electrical engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Xiaobo Tan in simple terms?

Xiaobo Tan (born 1972 in Danyang, China) is a Chinese-American electrical engineer and professor at Michigan State University. He is an MSU Foundation Professor and the Richard M.

Why does Xiaobo Tan 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 Xiaobo Tan?

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 Xiaobo Tan.