Simon X. Yang

University of Guelph, Canada

Bio: Simon X. Yang received the B.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics from Peking University, Beijing, China, the first of two M.Sc. degrees in Biophysics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, the second M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston, Houston, TX, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Dr. Yang is currently a Professor and the Head of the Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.
Prof. Yang’s research interests include robotics, intelligent systems, control systems, sensors and multi-sensor fusion, wireless sensor networks, bio-inspired intelligence, neural networks, machine learning, fuzzy systems, evolutionary computation, intelligent agriculture, intelligent communications, intelligent transportation, and computational neuroscience. Prof. Yang has been very active in professional activities. He has been served as the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor of several international journals, and has involved in the organization of many international conferences. He was on the grant review panel of NSERC, CIHR and several other grant agencies.

Mingcong Deng

(Fellow of The Engineering Academy of Japan, IEEE Fellow)

Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan

Bio: Prof. Mingcong Deng received his PhD in Systems Science from Kumamoto University, Japan, in 1997. From 1997.04 to 2010.09, he was with Kumamoto University; University of Exeter, UK; NTT Communication Science Laboratories; Okayama University. From 2010.10, he has been with Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan, as a professor. Prof. Deng specializes in three complementary areas: Learning & operator based nonlinear fault detection and fault tolerant control system design; System design on human factor based robot control; Learning based nonlinear adaptive control. Prof. Deng has over 550 publications including 200 journal papers in peer reviewed journals including IEEE Transactions, IEEE Press and other top tier outlets. He serves as a chief editor for 2 international journals, and associate editors of 6 international journals. Prof. Deng is a co-chair of agricultural robotics and automation technical committee, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society; Also a chair of the environmental sensing, networking, and decision making technical committee, IEEE SMC Society. He was the recipient of 2014 & 2019 Meritorious Services Award of IEEE SMC Society, 2020 IEEE RAS Most Active Technical Committee Award (IEEE RAS Society).

Zhijun Zhang

South China University of Technology, China

Bio: Zhijun Zhang is a professor and doctoral supervisor of South China University of Technology. He is a high-level talent introduction scholar of South China University of Technology, an outstanding young person of Guangdong Province, and a young top talent of Guangdong Science and Technology Innovation. He has long been engaged in the research of neural network, control optimization and robotics. He is currently a member of the Committee on Hybrid Intelligence, Committee on Co-integrated Robotics, Committee on Adaptive Dynamic Planning and Reinforcement Learning, Committee on Visual Perception and Computation of the Chinese Society of Graphics and Imaging, Executive Editor-in-Chief of Global Journal of Neural Science, Associate Editor of International Journal of Robotics and Control. He is also the reviewer of more than 20 international SCI journals, reviewer of China National Foundation Committee, and reviewer of Guangdong High-tech Enterprises. His main original achievements include: (1) proposed a varying-parameter convergent-differential neural network model, which has super-exponential convergence and good robustness; (2) proposed a real-time natural human-robot interaction method based on neural dynamics to solve the robot real-time natural interaction problem; (3) proposed a robot hybrid multi-index intelligent optimization method to solve the multi-objective optimization problem of different layers; (4) independently developed prototypes of multi-modal polar extreme like human emotional interaction intelligent robots, intelligent flying robots, multimodal rehabilitation-assisted wheelchair robots, complex environment anti-epidemic mask detection intelligent robots, etc., and some of the results are on the way to industrialization.
Zhijun Zhang has published/accepted 100 papers in important international journals and conferences, 80 SCI journal papers, 42 SCI papers by first author/corresponding author, 27 IEEE Trans full papers by first author/corresponding author, 2 highly cited papers, and 2 books/chapters in English. The research has been positively cited and evaluated by high-level scholars including IEEE Fellow in the US. Received 95 invention patents and granted 11 invention patents. He presided over 1 National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) project, 1 NSFC youth project, 1 Guangdong outstanding young person project, 1 Guangdong Young Top Talent project, 2 horizontal projects, and participated in 1 National Key R&D Program project. The total project funding is more than 4 million RMB. He received one best paper award from IEEE ICAL2011, one best paper award from ARM2020, one best paper award from ISAS2020, one nomination award from SCIS-CCC, and one workshop best poster award from IROS2019, the flagship conference of international robotics. Poster Award.