Special Session on Advances in Control Education
Chairs:
- Katarína Žáková (University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia)
- Mikuláš Huba (University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia)
Scope: The scope of this session is to share experience of educators working in control area to enhance quality of preparation of students for todays’ needs. The goal is to bring together experts from the field of control and education that will contribute to:
- demonstrating, discussing, evaluating and linking existing resources in the control education area;
- linking different open educational resources;
- using various teaching aids for control engineering including laboratory equipment, online labs, virtual reality, etc;
- increasing awareness of the automatic control importance in our society;
- enhancing control education in interdisciplinary areas;
- supporting university-industry co-operation in control engineering education.
Special Session on Computational Intelligence for Data Processing and Control
Chairs:
- Andrzej Dzielinski (Warsaw University of Technology, Poland)
- Marcin Iwanowski (Warsaw University of Technology, Poland)
Scope: The scope of the special session covers wide spectrum of computational intelligence methods applied to processing of various kinds of data, as well as to solving problems of modern control. In particular, the session is focused on but not limited to the following topics:
- fuzzy logic;
- neural networks;
- deep learning;
- evolutionary computation;
- machine learning;
- probabilistic methods.
Within the scope of the session are also applications of methods based on the above approaches that are used to solve various problems linked with:
- pattern recognition, image processing, computer vision, speech processing;
- data mining, business intelligence, big data;
- control systems and automation, linear and non-linear systems, control theory and industrial control;
- optimization methods, nonlinear optimization.
Special Session on Applications of Differential Geometry to Engineering Problems
Chair:
- Knut Hüper (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany)
Scope: The special session intends to promote the importance of using differential geometric methods to solve problems that arise in various branches of engineering. It shows the elegance and clarity that arises when geometric ideas and tools are incorporated, often leading to the derivation of more efficient algorithms and better solutions.
The topics might cover a broad spectrum of theoretical, numerical and applied facets of geometric methods. This includes optimization, interpolation and data analysis on manifolds and aspects of geometric control. Applications might include robotic systems, computer vision and pattern recognition, but biomedical engineering as well.
Special Session on Applications on Health, Environment and Earth Sciences
Chairs:
- José Machado (Algoritmi/University of Minho, Portugal)
- Rita Silva Marques (CIVISA/IVAR/University of the Azores, Portugal)
- Rosalina Gabriel (IITAA/University of the Azores, Portugal)
Scope: The impact of Soft Computing in society is becoming higher, encouraging the integration of techniques and tools into both every day and advanced applications. Conventional methods usually produce cost-effective analytical solutions. There is an attempt to study, model, and analyze very complex phenomena. Many of these solutions are developed through soft computing applications. The focus is the use of autonomous solutions able to perform hard tasks and the development of intelligent people-centered applications. The computational approaches are used to solve simple or complex problems. However, more complex systems arise in several areas, such as healthcare, environment, and earth sciences. There is the need of researching and providing new technologies in healthcare to help the clinical staff to support decision in order to improve patient conditions; in environment, to improve management and mitigation measures of multifaceted issues such as the effects of systemic pollution, climate change or biodiversity loss; and in earth sciences to improve the efficiency on data processing and recognizing patterns regarding natural phenomena, which are crucial for risk mitigation and public healthcare. In this workshop, we intend to explore new trends and to present innovative works, applying soft computing applications to healthcare, environment, and earth sciences. Researchers engaged in research and development in this fast-growing field are welcome to participate.
Special Session on Marine Systems and Robotics: Theory and Applications
Chairs:
- António Pascoal (IST, University of Lisbon, Portugal)
- A. Pedro Aguiar (FEUP, University of Porto, Portugal)
Scope: Marine systems and robotics are timely work topics that pose considerable challenges to researchers and practitioners. Many core problems in these areas are largely open, and considerable research and development efforts are required to address and solve them. The magnitude of the tasks at hand demands a multifaceted approach to system analysis and design that will exploit the use of methods and tools from dynamical systems theory, automatic control, identification and estimation, networked systems, communications, and integrated sensing to design practical autonomous systems capable of executing complex scientific and commercial missions at sea in an efficient and reliable manner. Meeting these goals is a formidable endeavor, given the extremely tight design constraints imposed by the harsh conditions that both surface and underwater must face in real environments.
For the above reasons, there is considerable interest in bringing together the marine robotics community and specialists on a number of complementary areas (including automatic control and related topics) to foster new synergies and promote joint research activities aimed at solving practical problems with far reaching implications on scientific, commercial, and societal marine-related issues. It is against this backdrop of ideas that we put forward the session entitled Marine Systems and Robotics: Theory and Applications, aimed at bringing attention to this exciting field of research and promoting the cross fertilization of ideas required to bring new theoretical and practical advances to bear on the development of innovative systems.
We welcome the submission of papers on a number of subjects that include, but are not limited to: i) cooperative networked motion planning, navigation, and control in the presence of stringent environmental constraints; ii) optimization, iii) system modeling, identification, and simulation; iv) combined vehicle-manipulator systems; v) vision; vi) sensor-based control; vii) geophysical-based navigation, and viii) acoustic and optical communications. We encourage also the submission of multidisciplinary work addressing scientific, commercial, and related societal issues.
Special Session on Structural Control and Health Monitoring Systems
Chairs:
- Manuel Braz César (Polytechnic Institute of Bragança and Construct Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal)
- Rui Carneiro de Barros (Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal)
- José Gonçalves (Polytechnic Institute of Bragança and INESC-TEC, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal)
Scope: This special session will be devoted to the modelling, simulation, design and application of structural control systems and the development innovative and state-of-the-art technology systems and methodologies addressed to health monitoring of existing structures. Thus, this session aims to discuss the most recent advances in edge-technology vibration control and health monitoring systems, to provide a dedicated forum to disseminate and collect contributions from a cross-disciplinary perspective of novel researches concerning complex methods and implementation technologies.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- passive, active, hybrid and semi-active control techniques
- advanced control laws
- system identification
- health monitoring and diagnostics
- signal processing
- actuator and sensor technology
- local damage detection
- intelligent monitoring systems
- wireless communications and measurements
- remote control of monitoring systems
Experimental models and actual applications of structural vibration control and monitoring systems are also included.
