Michael Littman
Research Areas
Short Bio
I have been a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering since 1979. I am an experimentalist with expertise in tunable laser design, laser spectroscopy, mechatronics, space telescope design, and STEM education. I am the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the MAE Department.
Professor Littman's research interests include automatic controls, tunable laser design, and bio-mimic robotics. His principal research concerns the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a project involving design and control of a high contrast coronagraph.
Selected Publications
L. Pueyo, M. Littman, N.J. Kasdin, R. Vanderbei, R. Belikov, and A. Give’on, Chromaticity Effects in Adaptive Optics: Wavelength Dependence of Amplitude Compensation, Proceedings of the SPIE 5903, (2005)
L. Pueyo, M. Littman, N.J. Kasdin, R. Belikov, and A. Give’on, Chromatic Behavior of Amplitude and Phase Compensators, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, 1 p.435 (2005)
N.J. Kasdin, R. Belikov, J. Beall, R. Vanderbei, M. Littman, M. Carr, and A Give’on, Shaped Pupil Coronagraphs for Planet Finding: Optimization, Manufacturing, and Experimental Results, Proceedings of the SPIE “Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection
N.J. Kasdin, Robert J. Vanderbei, Michael G. Littman, and David N. Spergel, Optimal One-dimensional Apodizations and Shaped Pupils for Planet Finding Coronagraphy, Appl. Opt. 44, issue 7, p. 1117 (2005)
A. Give’on, J. Kasdin, Y. Avitzour, R. Vanderbei, M. Littman, D. Spergel, “High-Frequency Folding and Optimal Phase Conjugation for High-Contrast Adaptive Optics”, in Proceedings of SPIE Conference on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 5487(155)