Mahmoud Abdelgalil

mabdelgalil{at}ucsd{dot}edu

Postdoctoral Researcher
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093
mabdelgalil{at}ucsd{dot}edu

Short Bio

Hello! I am Mahmoud Abdelgalil, currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at UC San Diego with Prof. Jorge I. Poveda. I received my BSc in aerospace and aeronautical engineering from Zewail University (Spring 2018), and my MSc and PhD degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering from UC Irvine (Winter 2020 and Winter 2023, respectively).

My PhD dissertation identifies an intriguing link between the navigation strategies of microorganisms, like sperm cells, and model-free real-time optimization algorithms. Further exploration of this connection led me to formulate novel results in Lie-Bracket averaging and adaptive robotic navigation. My work also offers new insights on the physics of the peculiar and seemingly discontinuous behavior of sea urchin sperm cells in the search for an egg. For more information, check out this article in the APS physics magazine, this article in Popular Science magazine, and this article in the IEEE Control Systems Magazine.

In parallel, I've had a deep-seated interest in the interplay between geometry, dynamical systems, and control. My recent work explores the potential of hybrid control in overcoming topological obstructions in model-free control, stabilization, and optimization on manifolds.

Education

PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - University of California, Irvine. March 2020 - March 2023
MSc in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - University of California, Irvine. September 2018 - March 2020
BSc in Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering - Zewail University September 2013 - June 2018

Awards and Honors

Best student paper award at the American Control Conference 2023.
Holmes endowed fellowship during Winter and Spring 2022.
Henry Samueli endowed fellowship during Spring 2019.

Publications

Preprints

[P4] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Jorge I. Poveda. "On Persistently Resetting Learning Integrators: A Framework For Model-Free Feedback Optimization." arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.10006 (2025).
[P3] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Tryphon T. Georgiou. "Collective steering in finite time: controllability on GL(n,R)." arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.18766 (2024).
[P2] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Tryphon T. Georgiou. "Sub-Riemannian Geometry, Mixing, and the Holonomy of Optimal Mass Transport." arXiv preprint (2024)
[P1] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Jorge I. Poveda. "Hybrid Minimum-Seeking in Synergistic Lyapunov Functions: Robust Global Stabilization under Unknown Control Directions." arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.04882 (2024).

Journal Articles

[J6] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Jorge I. Poveda. "On Lie-Bracket Averaging for Hybrid Dynamical Systems with Applications to Model-Free Control and Optimization." IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (2025).
[J5] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Jorge I. Poveda. "Initialization-free Lie-bracket Extremum Seeking." Systems & Control Letters 191 (2024): 105881.
[J4] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, Daniel E. Ochoa, and Jorge I. Poveda. "Multi-time scale control and optimization via averaging and singular perturbation theory: From ODEs to hybrid dynamical systems." Annual Reviews in Control 56 (2023): 100926.
[J3] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, Yasser Aboelkassem, and Haithem Taha. "Sea urchin sperm exploit extremum seeking control to find the egg." Physical Review E 106.6 (2022): L062401.
[J2] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Haithem Taha. "Recursive averaging with application to bio-inspired 3-D source seeking." IEEE Control Systems Letters 6 (2022): 2816-2821.
[J1] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Haithem Taha. "Lie bracket approximation-based extremum seeking with vanishing input oscillations." Automatica 133 (2021): 109735.

Conference Proceedings

[C7] Ochoa, Daniel E., Mahmoud Abdelgalil, and Jorge I. Poveda. "On the Instability of Nesterov's ODE under Non-Conservative Vector Fields.", accepted in the 13th IFAC Symposium on Nonlinear Control Systems (NOLCOS).
[C6] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, Asmaa Eldesoukey, and Haithem Taha. "Singularly perturbed averaging with application to bio-inspired 3d source seeking." 2023 American Control Conference (ACC).
[C5] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Haithem E. Taha. "Feedback Oscillatory Control of Roll Instability During Stall Using the LIBRA Mechanism." AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum. 2023.
[C4] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, and Haithem Taha. "Recursive averaging with application to bio-inspired 3-D source seeking." 2022 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC).
[C3] Eldesoukey, Asmaa, Mahmoud Abdelgalil, and Haitham E. Taha. "Observations On the Use of Gap Metric in Model Reduction." AIAA SCITECH 2022 Forum. 2022.
[C2] Abdelgalil, Mahmoud, Ahmed Hassan, and Haitham E. Taha. "On the motion planning and feedback stabilization of nonlinear systems with drift." AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum. 2021.
[C1] Nasr, Mahmoud, Mahmoud Abdelgalil, and Ahmed H. AbdelKader. "Stability Analysis of the Coupled Unsteady Aero-Flight Dynamics of Flapping Wing MAVs During Hover Using Optimized Periodic Shooting." 2018 AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference. 2018.

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