ECR Webinar – Control for Smart and Sustainable Mobility
Webinar- Control Technologies for Smart & Sustainable Mobility Systems
Date: 7th February 2025
Time: 10am – 12.30pm
Location: Zoom Link
Join our academics and invited industry speakers to discuss the opportunities and challenges of control technologies for smart and sustainable mobility systems and hear how they drive their efforts to address them.
Event Information
Open to
All
Cost
Free
Organiser
Automatic Control Engineering (ACE) Network
Location
This is an online event. The zoom link will be sent in advance of 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 Yang Jun Reader in Loughborough University |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Application of deep reinforcement learning techniques to improve vehicle safety and performance
Dr. Umberto Montanaro Lecturer in the University of Surrey |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | MPC with parameter-dependent control policies, with applications to lateral control of road vehicles
Dr. James Fleming |
| 11:00 – 11:05 | Short Break |
|
Session 2: Meet the industry and networking |
|
| 11:05 – 11:20 | Energy Management System for Fuel Cell Hybrid Semi-trucks
Dr. Anastasis Georgiou Senior Controls Engineer with Nikola Motor |
| 11:20 – 11:35 | 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 | Connected and Coordinated Train Operation and Traction Power Supply Systems for Decarbonisation
Dr. Zhongbei Tian Lecturer in the University of Birmingham |
| 12:10 – 12:25 | Microgrids for Resilient EV Charging and Future Electrification
Dr. Mahdieh S. Sadabadi Lecturer in 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 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 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 associate editor of “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 of 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 on 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, the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester Previously, she held academic positions at 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 Ph.D. 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 centered on robust fixed-structure control of large-scale uncertain systems, networked control systems, and their applications in power grids, microgrids, and power electronic converters.
