ECR Webinar - Control for Smart and Sustainable Mobility - ACE

Date: 7th February 2025
Time: 10:00 – 12.30
Location: Online. The Zoom link will be sent before the event.
Registration: Register at this link

About the Seminar

This seminar aims to gather ECRs in control engineering to discuss critical challenges and opportunities in the evolution of mobility systems triggered by cutting-edge control and AI techniques. It will feature ECRs working across diverse domains within the context of future mobility, including road and railway systems, mobility electrification, and other emerging transportation technologies. Industry presenters will share insights from early deployments and the challenges encountered. The seminar will translate these insights into a practical and impactful research roadmap, promoting research collaboration within the ACE network and preparing us for upcoming funding opportunities.

Agenda

Time	Details
Session 1: Welcome + Intelligent mobility systems
10:05 – 10:10	Opening by Future Mobility Grand Challenge lead Prof. Eric Kerrigan
10:10 – 10:30	Safety Critical Control Under Disturbances: A Control Barrier Function Approach Dr Jun Yang Reader at Loughborough University
10:30 – 10:45	Autonomous connected vehicles Dr Umberto Montanaro Lecturer at the University of Surrey
10:45 – 11:00	Safety-related driver assistance Dr James Fleming Senior Lecturer at Loughborough University
11:00 – 11:05	Short Break
Session 2: Meet the industry and networking
11:05 – 11:20	Title TBD Dr Anastasis Georgiou Senior Controls Engineer with Nikola Motor
11:20 – 11:35	AUTOMATIC TRAIN AND SIGNALLING CONTROL: Embedding Artificial Intelligence for Non-timetabled Service Operation Jingyu Du Senior Engineer with TFL
11:35 – 11:55	Speed networking for quick introductions (breakout room)
Session 3: Sustainable Mobility Systems
11:55 – 12:10	Electrification of railway systems Dr Zhongbei Tian Lecturer at the University of Birmingham
12:10 – 12:25	EV charging control and how it interacts with smart grid Dr Mahdieh S. Sadabadi Lecturer at the University of Manchester
12:25 – 12:30	Closing remarks by Dr Boli Chen

About the Speakers

Professor Eric Kerrigan

Departments of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Aeronautics at Imperial College London.

Professor Kerrigan obtained a PhD in Control Engineering from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cape Town. He has received funding from a variety of sources, including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the European Commission’s Framework Programmes, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society. His research has also been
supported by industrial partners such as Siemens Corporate Technology, EADS Innovation Works, The MathWorks and ESA. He has extensive consulting experience with various companies, providing expert advice on control and optimisation problems.

Professor Kerrigan currently serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic
Control. He has been a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Board of Governors, a Senior Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and an Associate Editor for Control Engineering Practice. He has also served on the editorial boards of several other journals and conferences, including the IEEE Control Systems Society Conference Editorial Board.

Dr Umberto Montanaro

School of Mechanical Engineering Sciences at the University of Surrey

Dr Umberto Montanaro received the Laurea (M.Sc.) degree (cum laude) in computer science engineering from the University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy, in 2005, and the PhD degrees in Control Engineering and in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Naples Federico II, in 2009 and 2016, respectively. From 2010 to 2013, he was a Research Fellow with the Italian National Research Council (Istituto Motori). In this timeframe, He also served as a temporary Lecturer with the University of Naples Federico II in “Automation and Process Control” and as a temporary Lecturer in Control for the Postgraduate Master in Automotive Engineering. He joined the University of Surrey in 2016 as a research fellow. He is currently a Lecturer in control systems for automotive engineering within the Centre for Automotive Engineering. The scientific results he has obtained until now have been the subject of more than 60 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed international scientific journals and conferences. Moreover, Dr Montanaro is also an associate editor of “The International Journal of Powertrains”.

Dr James Fleming

School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University

Dr James Fleming is a Lecturer within the Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University, joining the school in September 2019. James obtained the MEng and DPhil degrees in 2012 and 2016, respectively, from the University of Oxford, where he studied control
engineering and developed algorithms for Model Predictive Control of uncertain state-space systems as part of his doctoral research. From 2016 to 2019, he was a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, developing driver models and optimal control algorithms for the G-Active (Green, Adaptive ConTrol of Interconnected VEhicles) project, which used knowledge of driver preferences to save fuel and reduce emissions in the energy management of conventional, hybrid and electric vehicles.

Dr Zhongbei Tian

Department of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Birmingham

Dr Zhongbei Tian leads the research on transport energy system decarbonisation. Some research interests include transport (railway, road, ship) energy system modelling and analysis, railway traction power supply systems, energy-efficient train control, energy system optimisation, and sustainable transport energy systems integration and management. Zhongbei has published over 60 high-impact papers. He has been leading a number of projects funded by EPSRC, Royal Society, Horizon 2020, Network Rail, RSSB, and Innovate UK. His research has been implemented in projects across the world, including Network Rail, Edinburgh Tram in the UK, Madrid Metro in Spain, SMRT in Singapore, Beijing and Guangzhou Metro in China. He was the winner of the prestigious 2016 European Partnership for Railway Energy Settlement Systems (ERESS) Award for Best Energy Efficiency Project for Railways.

Dr Mahdieh S. Sadabadi

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester

Dr Sadabadi is a Lecturer in Power Systems Group at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester. Previously, she held academic positions at the Queen Mary University of London and the University of Sheffield. She was a Research Associate in the Computational and Biological Learning (CBL) Group at the Department of Engineering, the University of Cambridge, and affiliated with Trinity College in Cambridge. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Automatic Control at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Linkoping University in Sweden. She received her PhD in Control Systems from Automatic Control Laboratory (LA), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, in February 2016. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Electrical Engineering Department, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, QC, Canada, Methods and Algorithms for Control (MAC) group, LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse, France, and HHMI Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, VA, USA. Her research interests are generally centred on robust fixed-structure control of large-scale uncertain systems, networked control systems, and their applications in power grids, microgrids, and power electronic converters.