Program

Keynote Lecture

May 24 | 9:10 AM - 09:55 AM | Session Chair: Dr. Yang Shi, University of Victoria, Canada

A Generic Model for Resilient Dynamic Systems
Dr. W.J. (Chris) Zhang, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Dr. Zhang is a full professor at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada). Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. from Delft University of Technology in 1994. His main research area is on human-machine systems, system science and engineering and their applications to manufacturing and service systems. Dr. Zhang has published over 300 papers in refereed journals or magazines and over 200 papers in refereed conference proceedings with his h-index of 55 (Google Scholar) and held over 10 patents. Dr. Zhang has been very active in editorial board work for several IEEE journals, including IEEE Transaction on Mechatronics (Senior Editor from 2019 to present), IEEE system journal, and IEEE SMC – system (present). Dr. Zhang is a fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), a fellow of ASME. Dr. Zhang was one of the most highly cited researchers in IEEE by Elsevier (China) in 2015 to 2018, respectively. Dr. Zhang developed the general knowledge model for systems called FCBPSS (F: function, C: context, B: behavior, P: principle, SS: state-structure). Dr. Zhang is one of the pioneer researchers in engineering resilience, particularly in manufacturing systems and robots.

Keynote Lecture

May 24 | 09:55 AM - 10:40 AM | Session Chair: Dr. Yang Shi, University of Victoria, Canada

Throughput Optimization for Grant-Free Multiple Access with Multiagent Deep Reinforcement Learning
Dr. Vincent Wong, University of British Columbia, Canada

Vincent Wong is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His research areas include protocol design, optimization, and resource management of communication networks, with applications to the Internet, wireless networks, smart grid, fog computing, and Internet of Things. Currently, he is an executive editorial committee member of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, an Area Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, and an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. Dr. Wong is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Session

May 24 | 10:55 AM - 11:55 AM | Session Chair: Dr. W.J. (Chris) Zhang, University of Saskatchewan, Canada & Dr. Vincent Wong, University of British Columbia, Canada

Motion Control

Keynote Lecture

May 24 | 12:25 PM - 01:10 PM | Session Chair: Dr. Aparicio Carranza, New York City College of Technology, USA

High-Performance Micro Actuators with Applications
Dr. Ridha Ben Mrad, University of Toronto, Canada

Professor and Director, Mechatronics and Microsystems Design Laboratory, University of Toronto. He also serves since 2015 as Chief Research Officer and Associate Scientific Director of Mitacs and member of the Executive Team. He is also Chair of the Mitacs Research Council. Mitacs is a national organization that funds innovation across Canada. He is also a Co-founder and currently President and CTO of Sheba Microsystems Inc. a Toronto manufacturer of microactuators for miniature cameras for the smart phone, automotive and action camera markets.

He joined the University of Toronto in 1997, having previously held positions at the National Research Council of Canada, and the Ford Research Laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan. Ridha received a PHD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1994. His research led to a number of patents and inventions including 30+ international patents, more than 300 refereed research publications and a number of technology licenses to industry. He received numerous teaching, research and professional awards including the Connaught Innovation Award in 2013 and in 2014. His recent activities include being Associate Editor of the Journal of Mechatronics (2015-current), serving on the Steering Committee of the IEEE Journal on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (2010-current) and being a member of the IEEE IES Publication Committee (2013-current). He was in the recent past the founding Director of the Robotics and Mechatronics Institute and Associate Chair, Research of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto.

Session

May 24 | 01:10 PM - 01:55 PM | Session Chair: Dr. Mashood Mukhtar, Brunel University London, UK

Robotics I

Keynote Lecture

May 25 | 9:00 AM - 9:45 AM | Session Chair: Dr. Aparicio Carranza, New York City College of Technology, USA

An Overview and Performance Evaluation of an EPON-based 5G RAN Architecture enabled by Distributed Network Control Management
Dr. Syed R. Zaidi, Bronx Community College, USA

Syed Rashid Zaidi received the M.S., M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from City University of New York, NY, USA. He is currently Assistant Professor & Program Director of Cybersecurity & Networking Technology and Electronic Engineering Technology in The Department of Engineering, Physics & Technology of the Bronx Community College of The City University of New York. His research areas are Fiber Optics Communications, LTE, WiMAX, 5G, and next generation wireless networks and cybersecurity. He has received numerous awards, a recent one is a prestigious grant award from the U.S. Department of Education to update the Cybersecurity program and build the latest industrial-standard lab.

Keynote Lecture

May 25 | 9:45 AM - 10:30 AM | Session Chair: Dr. Aparicio Carranza, New York City College of Technology, USA

Pushing Intelligence at the Edge: Edge-centric Inferential Analytics
Dr. Christos Anagnostopoulos, University of Glasgow, UK

Dr Christos (Chris) Anagnostopoulos is an Associate Professor in Distributed and Pervasive Computing, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. His expertise is in the areas of context-aware large-scale distributed data systems and in-network information processing. He has received funding for his research by the EC/H2020, UK EPSRC and the industry. He is an author of over 150 refereed scientific journals/conferences. Chris is leading the Essence: Pervasive & Distributed Computing Lab within the Knowledge and Data Engineering Systems Group (IDA Section). Before joining Glasgow, Chris was an Assistant Professor at Ionian University and University of Athens. He has held postdoctoral positions at University of Glasgow and University of Athens in the area of mobile and context-aware computing. He holds a BSc, MSc, and PhD in Computing Science, University of Athens. He has served as a Programme Committee member and Session Chair in more that 20 international conferences in Computing Science, been Editorial Board member in Applied Intelligence and Distributed Sensor Networks journals, Guest Editor in special issues (Sensors and Machine Learning & Cybernetics journals), and Senior Editor in Open Computer Science. He has been a MSCA Fellowship Supervisor in University of Glasgow, is an Associate Fellow of the HEA and member of ACM, IEEE and IEEE STC.

Session

May 25 | 10:45 AM - 11:35 AM | Session Chair: Dr. Syed R. Zaidi, Bronx Community College, USA

Linear and Nonlinear Control

Session

May 25 | 12:05 PM - 12:50 PM | Session Chair: Dr. Christos Anagnostopoulos, University of Glasgow, UK

Robotics II