Keynote Speakers
Speaker I : Prof. Shinji Hara, Chuo University, Japan.
Title: Hierarchically Decentralized Control for Networked Dynamical Systems towards Smart Cities
Abstract. There are many dynamical systems that can be regarded as hierarchical networked dynamical systems in a variety of fields related to smart cities. One of the ideas to treat those systems properly is “Glocal (Global/Local) Control,” which means that the global purpose is achieved by only local actions of measurement and control. The key for realization of glocal control is hierarchical networked dynamical systems with multiple resolutions in time and space depending on the layer. After the explanation of the background, a unified framework and its fundamental control theory for glocal control, we focus on how to design hierarchically decentralized control with global/local objectives by aggregation. Through the talk we show the effectiveness of the theoretical results for applications to electric vehicle control, power network systems, and urban transportation systems towards smart cities.
Biography. Shinji Hara received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in engineering all from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1974, 1976, and 1981, respectively. In 1984, he joined Tokyo Tech. as an Associate Professor and has served as a Full Professor for ten years. Since 2002 he had been a Full Professor of Det. of Information Physics and Computing, The University of Tokyo until March in 2017. He is currently a Professor at Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan. His current research interests are in robust control, decentralized cooperative control for large-scale networked dynamical systems, system biology, glocal control. Dr. Hara received the George S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award from the IEEE Control System Society in 2006. He was the President of SICE in 2009 and the Vice-President of the IEEE CSS in 2009-2010, IFAC Council member in 2011-2017, and Fellow of IFAC, IEEE and SICE.
Speaker II: Dr. Tichakorn Wongpiromsarn,
Principal Research Scientist, NuTonomy, Singapore
Title : Autonomous Vehicles for Mobility on Demand
Abstract. The DARPA Urban Challenge competition has sparked considerable attention in autonomous vehicles not only from the research community but also from the industry and public. Since then, the technology has been continuously further developed and shown great promises as a potential alternative to current transportation options. NuTonomy, a startup that spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has joined the race against a number of rivals to deploy autonomous vehicles. We are currently working with Singapore to utilize autonomous vehicles as shared resources in Mobility on Demand (MoD) systems. In this talk, I will provide the story of the company and discuss some of the challenges that remain in implementing such a system.
Biography. Tichakorn (Nok) Wongpiromsarn received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from California Institute of Technology. She is currently a principal research scientist at nuTonomy, working on developing the planning and decision-making system for autonomous vehicles. Her research interests span hybrid systems, distributed control systems, formal methods, transportation networks and situational reasoning and decision making in complex, dynamic and uncertain environments.