Prof. Zhengtao Ding (IEEE Senior Member)

The University of Manchester, UK

Biography: Prof. Zhengtao Ding graduated with BEng from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He then studied control engineering in the Control Systems Centre, UMIST, with MSc in systems and control and PhD in control systems. He joined as a lecturer in School of Engineering, University of Manchester in September 2003 after having been a lecturer in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore, for ten years. He joined the Control Systems Centre, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2004, after the merger of the UMIST and Victoria University of Manchester, and he is now Professor of Control Systems in The University of Manchester. His research interests were initially focused on nonlinear and adaptive control theory, and more recently are focused on distributed optimization and control of network-connected dynamic systems, distributed learning and AI applications. His research projects cover various industrial applications, such as distributed optimization in micro grids, formation control of mobile robots and UAVs etc., He has published over 300 research papers, and authored/co-authored three books, including a book entitled “Nonlinear and Adaptive Control Systems” published by IET in 2013. He is a fellow of The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Drones and Autonomous Vehicles, and the Specialty Chief Editor for Nonlinear Control for Frontiers in Control Engineering, and he also serves as, or has been, an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Control Systems Letters, IEEE Transactions on Circuit and Systems II, Journal of Franklin Institute and several other journals. 

Prof. Qiang Yang (IEEE Senior Member)

Zhejiang University, China

Biography: Qiang Yang received Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science from Queen Mary, University of London, London, U.K., in 2007 and worked in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London, U.K., from 2007 to 2010. He visited the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria Canada as a visiting scholar in 2015 and 2016. He is currently a full Professor at the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, China, and has published more than 270 technical papers, filed 50 national patents, co-authored 2 books, and edited 2 books and several book chapters. His research interests over the years include smart energy systems, large-scale complex network modeling, control and optimization, learning based optimization and control. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS) and International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM), a Senior Member of IEEE, IET and the Senior Member of China Computer Federation (CCF).

Prof. Akash Saxena (IEEE Senior Member)

School of Engg. & Technology Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh, India

Biography: Dr. Akash  received the Bachelor of Technology in Engineering with honors in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Engineering College Kota, Kota Rajasthan, India in 2001,Master of Technology with honors in Power System Engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India in 2008 and Ph.D. degree in Power System Dynamics from the Malaviya National Institute of Technology, India in 2015. Dr. Akash has presented research work at national/international conferences in India and abroad. His work has been published in leading journals in the form of short communication/letters /articles/research papers. He is associated with many professional organizations as an editor, reviewer and adviser. His research interests are the Computational Intelligence, Application of Artificial Intelligence in the power system, Control theory, smart grid, signal processing and Metaheuristics.