We are thrilled to announce the AI and Data Talk Series — an engaging lecture series presented by the ACE AI and Data Grand Challenge Research Committee. This series aims to elevate awareness and foster dialogue among a diverse audience, including established researchers, industry professionals, and early career scholars, about the vital intersection of control theory and AI technologies.
We are pleased to announce the upcoming ACE Ageing Society Grand Challenge Workshops, taking place on 12th and 13th June 2025 at the University of Warwick.
Hosted by the ACE Network (EPSRC-funded Automatic Control Engineering Network), these back-to-back events will explore how Automatic Control can support the UK’s ageing society through applied research, innovation, and collaboration between academia, industry, and policymakers.
The ACE Network, in collaboration with MathWorks, invites early-career researchers, senior academics, and industry professionals to a dynamic full-day event on June 5, 2025, in Cambridge.
We are pleased to announce an upcoming Industry Workshop on the Role of Automatic Control in Future Mobility, taking place on 7
Roger is a Professor of Control Systems Engineering and a member of the Automation Robotics and Control Group at the University of Birmingham. With a passion for research, innovation, and research-led teaching, his work focuses on advanced methods for model-based control, monitoring, fault tolerance, and mechatronic design of engineering systems.
Help Shape the Future of the UK Control Community At core part of ACE Network’s mission is a bold aim: to establish
Lucia Marucci is a Professor of Systems and Engineering Biology at the University of Bristol. After completing her studies in Mathematics, Lucia started a PhD in Automatic Engineering, focused on the design of synthetic gene network (University of Naples, Italy, PhD award 2010). She then moved to the Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona, Spain) where she was awarded an EMBO Long term fellowship to study gene expression dynamics in pluripotent stem cells.
Professor Marko Bacic is an Engineering Associate Fellow in Control Systems and Gas Turbine Functionality at Rolls-Royce and also holds a University Research Lectureship at Oxford since July 2012. He completed his degree in Engineering and Computing Science (2001) and his D. Phil in Model Predictive Control (2004) both from the University of Oxford.
Kang Li is Professor of Smart Energy Systems at the University of Leeds where he is the Director of Institute of Communication and Power Networks. He has over thirty years of research experience working on a wide range of control engineering applications in energy, transport and manufacturing. Prior to joining the University of Leeds, he was a Professor of Intelligent Systems and Control at the Queen’s University of Belfast from 2011-2018. He received his PhD in Control Theory and Applications from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1995, and had various research experiences at Shanghai Jiaotong University, Delft University of Technology, and the Queen’s University Belfast before he started his academic career in the UK in 2002.
A control engineer by training, his work spans many research topics, covering nonlinear system modelling and identification, intelligent control, and AI and machine learning, but his greatest interest is on the development of holistic sensing, modelling, control, and optimization techniques to support low carbon transition of different sectors. His work on energy management and control of energy intensive manufacturing processes funded by EPSRC has led to the development of a minimal-invasive edge-cloud based energy monitoring and analytic platform (Point Energy Technology) which has been successfully used in polymer processing and food processing to support process monitoring, control and energy management, winning 2015 Institute of Measurement and Control ICI prize for the best application paper, 2016 Northern Ireland Science Park INVENT award, the finalist of 2016 Sustainable Energy Awards by Ireland Sustainable Energy Authority, and 2015 Outstanding Award for Knowledge Transfer Partnership. Kang has made systematic contributions to battery energy management, covering electro-thermal modelling of batteries for State of Charge estimation, model predictive control framework for battery charging and discharging considering multiple objectives and constraints, machine-learning based state of health estimation, and development of FBG optic fibre sensing system and associated AI orchestrated data driven analytic platform for battery management. These research works have been highly cited and adopted in engineering applications either through innovation demonstration projects or through research students working in the industry after graduation. Funded by Ofgem, EPSRC and industry, he is currently leading the development of a new microgrid technology, namely railway energy hubs to accelerate railway decarbonization, with the first live demonstrator to be built in Scotland, with the purpose to support the roll-out of the energy hub technology to as many of 2500 railway stations across UK, providing services of substantial scale to both railway and power grids.
Raul Arribas is a GNC (Guidance, Navigation, and Control) Engineer with professional experience at leading aerospace organizations, including Airbus Space and Rolls-Royce. His work spans spacecraft mission design, algorithm development, and system validation, showcased through his impactful contributions to high-profile projects such as the ESA/NASA-JPL Mars Sample Fetch Rover and more recently on European Space Agency’s FORUM mission.
An Imperial College London Master’s graduate with First-Class Honours, Raul is also a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Raul combines a robust technical foundation with problem solving in engineering. Beyond current engineering projects, Raul is passionate about industry-academia partnerships, organising several collaborations with Oxford, and Imperial College London.
Raul brings a solid technical foundation, creative problem-solving, and a positive mindset to his work.
