Keynote Speaker in 2022, and 2023 is to be updated ...
 

Prof. Youmin Zhang
IEEE Senior Member

Concordia University, Canada

Dr. Youmin Zhang is currently a Professor at the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering and the Concordia Institute of Aerospace Design and Innovation (CIADI) at Concordia University, Canada. His main research interests and experience are in the areas of condition monitoring, health management, fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control systems; cooperative guidance, navigation and control of unmanned aerial/space/ground/marine vehicles with applications to forest fires, pipelines, power lines, wind farms, solar panels arrays, environment, natural resources and natural disasters monitoring, detection, and protection by combining with remote sensing techniques; dynamic systems modeling, estimation, identification and advanced control techniques; and advanced signal processing techniques for diagnosis, prognosis, fault-tolerant and health management of safety-critical systems with application to renewable and hybrid energy systems and smart grids, and smart cities. He has published 8 books, over 550 journal and conference papers. He was given the title of Concordia University Research Fellow in the Strategic Research Cluster 'Technology, Industry and the Environment' in 2018 in recognition of his outstanding research works and contributions. His research works on developments of unmanned systems with applications to forest fire detection and autonomous transportation have been reported by public media in national (CTV News, Radio-Canada International, Canadian Science Publishing), citywide (La Presse, Ville.Montreal), and organizational (Concordia News, Quanser Inc., Amtek Company) levels several times. Dr. Zhang is a Fellow of Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering (CSME), a Senior Member of AIAA and IEEE, President of International Society of Intelligent Unmanned Systems (ISIUS), Executive Committee Member of International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), Steering Committee Member of International Symposium on Autonomous Systems (ISAS), and a member of the Technical Committee for several international and national scientific societies. He has been an Editor-in-Chief, an Editor-at-Large, an Editorial Board Member, and Associate Editor of several international journals, including as a Board Member of Governors and Regional Representative (North America) for "Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems", Associate Editor for "IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks & Learning Systems", "IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems - II: Express Briefs", "IET Cyber-systems and Robotics", "Unmanned Systems", "Journal of Systems Science and Complexity", "Chinese Journal of Aeronautics”, Deputy Editor-in-Chief for "Guidance, Navigation and Control" etc. He has served as General Chair and Program Chair of several unmanned systems and renewable energy relevant international conferences, including as a General Chair of the 5th Int. Symp. on Autonomous Systems (ISAS’22), Hangzhou, China, April 8-10, 2022 (www.isas-conference.com), a General Chair of the 2022 Int. Conf. on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS’22), Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 21-24, 2022 (http://www.uasconferences.com/), Program Chair of the 5th Int. Conf. on Renewable Energy and Power Engineering (REPE’22), Beijing, China, Oct. 28-30, 2022 (http://www.repe.net/). Dr. Zhang will be also an Honorary General Chair for Int. Conf. on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS'23), Warsaw, Poland, June 6-9, 2023. More information can be found at http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~ymzhang/.

Speech Title:  Towards Smarter, Safer, More Sustainable and Resilient Smart Cities and Green Energies with Applications of Unmanned Systems and Smart Grids

Abstract: Smart cities and green energies are popular subjects for research and development towards a better and healthier human living quality as well as social and economic developments worldwide. Among many key subjects, making smart cities smarter (more intelligent), safer, more secure, and more reliable, with efficient use of unmanned systems (on the air, land and water) and renewable energies (wind, solar, and hydro etc.) towards safety, resilience and sustainability are key challenges and top priorities for development. In terms of these ultimate goals and objectives, a brief overall view on the challenges and latest developments on condition monitoring, physical faults and cyber-attacks detection and diagnosis, fault/attack-tolerant control (FTC), and fault/attack-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) in unmanned systems and smart grids with renewable wind and solar energies are given first. Then, our latest research works on the above-mentioned subjects will be introduced as examples among recently fast-developing research works under the general framework of cyber-physical systems (CPS).

 

Prof. P. W. T. Pong
IEEE Senior Member

New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA

Philip W. T. Pong received a B.Eng. from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2002 with 1st class honours. Then he studied for a PhD in engineering at the University of Cambridge (2002-2005). He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Magnetic Materials Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for three years. His research interest currently focuses on the development and application of advanced sensing techniques based on electromagnetic sensors in smart grid and nanotechnology. Philip Pong is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET), a Fellow of the Energy Institute (FEI), a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), a Fellow of the NANOSMAT Society (FNS), a chartered physicist (CPhys), a chartered electrical engineer (CEng), a chartered energy engineer, a registered professional engineer (R.P.E. in Electrical, Electronics, Energy), a Senior Member of IEEE (SMIEEE) and a corporate member of HKIE (MHKIE in Electrical Division and Electronics Division). He serves on the editorial boards for several IEEE and SCI journals.

Speech Title:  Contactless Magnetic Sensing in Condition Monitoring and Anomaly Detection for Smart Grid: New Possibilities and Alternatives
 

Abstract: Our physical and cyber environments are becoming increasingly intertwined with smarter sensing, communication, and data analytics. Our daily livings are indeed surrounded by a wide variety of sensors, IoT connectivity, and edge computing devices, constituting smart grid, smart city, smart transportation, and so on. The availability of sensing devices with measurement, communication, and processing capabilities is providing fine-grained data. Together with multimodal sensory data collection and sensor fusion can result in actionable insights and decisions. This synergy can lead to improved ways and quality of life in what we call smart living.
Magnetism is one of the six energy forms of measurands in sensing. Magnetic sensing plays a critical role in smart living due to various sources of magnetic fields such as magnetic fields from current-carrying wires and permanent magnets which are geometrically determined by Biot-Savart Law and Ampere's Law respectively. These magnetic fields can range from DC to AC, from low frequency to high frequency. Modern civilization heavily relies on electricity which are generated, transmitted, and utilized through various kinds of transmission medium and electrical machines that are composed of current-carrying conductors, electromagnets, and permanent magnets. As such, magnetic field sensing is an important source of data and thus information for condition monitoring of power generation, transmission, and distribution.
In this talk, we will discuss the various opportunities and alternatives magnetic field sensing can offer in condition monitoring and anomaly detection in smart grid and smart city. Since it is contactless sensing, its installation is easy and it can be easily retrofitted to the existing plant and equipment. This will minimize cost, avoid wear and tear, and meet stringent reliability requirement. Contactless magnetic sensing can complement the traditional contact measurement techniques and help to overcome the major obstacle towards pervasive sensing due to its scalability.