MECC 2021 Workshop Information (October 24, 2021)

For those who want workshop-only registrations, please directly contact Registration Chair: Jason Siegel ([email protected]).

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W1: Safe Control and Learning under Uncertainty

Autonomous systems are being widely deployed in safety-critical applications, for example, in autonomous driving and intelligent industrial and service robotics. As there are large uncertainties in these applications (e.g., autonomous vehicles interacting with unknown road participants), it is important to study how to safely control the autonomous systems, how to learn from their interactions with the environment to minimize uncertainty, and how to perform the learning safely and efficiently. This workshop aims to bring together researchers who work in the field of safe control and learning under uncertainty. We will discuss recent progress in the development of energy-function-based safe control methods (including control barrier functions, safe set algorithms, potential field methods, sliding mode methods, etc.) and safe learning controllers that use these safe control methods as safety monitors or safety shields. Detailed topics include and are not limited to: how to guarantee safety under uncertainty, how to efficiently synthesize or learn control barrier functions for unknown dynamic systems or learned dynamics encoded in deep neural networks, how to effectively quantify uncertainty for unknown systems, how to ensure safety during both exploitation and exploration, and how to ensure sufficient exploration during safe learning, etc. This workshop will consist of several keynote talks from faculties working in the field, a tutorial session on the topics delivered by the workshop organizer, a paper presentation session, a panel discussion session, and an interactive poster session.

Workshop 1 organizers decided to make the workshop free to students. Please register the W1 workshop using the following form!

W2: Advanced Big Data Analytics for Industrial Control Performance Assessment

Continuous process improvement is the main raison d'être for control systems. Control engineers require tools and indexes that would measure how good the control system is. Control performance assessment (CPA) is becoming a foundational technique in industry today. In the Industry 4.0 era, big data perspective pose a new challenge in CPA data analytics. Advanced statistical and fractional-order data-driven methods allow for incorporation of multi-criteria decision support into the assessment task. This workshop offers an overview of CPA tasks and algorithms with an emphasis on advanced statistical data-driven analytical tools – outliers and anomalies plus basic knowledge on advanced big-data fractional order signal processing approaches. This workshop also presents a CPA case study in the process industry.

W3: Practical Methods for Real World Control Systems

The proverbial “gap” between control theory and practice has been discussed since the 1960s, but it shows no signs of being any smaller today than it was back then. Despite this, the growing ubiquity of powerful and inexpensive computation platforms, of sensors, actuators and small devices, the “Internet of Things”, of automated vehicles and quadcopter drones, means that there is an exploding application of control in the world. This workshop is intended for academic researchers who are well versed in control theory but would like to learn more about issues practicing control engineers often encounter as well as techniques and methods often used outside of standard textbook solutions to enhance their students’ experience in the classroom and laboratory. It is also of interest to practicing engineers who work on physical control systems and products that use control with an interest in connecting their work to “best practices” motivated by theory. Finally, students who may be interested in adding laboratory experiments to their research or want to know how to make what they have learned applicable in industry are invited to participate.

W4: Publishing Your Research 101 – Skills for Graduate Students

Many skills needed for being successful in graduate school, specifically publishing your research in top conferences and journals, are not taught in your classes. This full-day workshop aimed at graduate students will tackle two of these important skills: (1) effectively using online search tools to conduct and manage your literature reviews and (2) developing effective visuals to convey your research results. The first half of the workshop will be led by a professor in Purdue’s Libraries and School of Information Studies. The second half of the workshop will be led by a team of visual communication specialists.

Please register the W4 workshop using the following form!