Dr. Scott Kelly

    Scott David Kelly earned his BS in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University and his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He worked as a research engineer in Biological Systems Modeling at Entelos, Inc. and as a faculty member in Mechanical Science & Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before joining the department of Mechanical Engineering & Engineering Science at UNC Charlotte in 2007. Professor Kelly's research interests include analytical mechanics, nonlinear dynamics and control, differential geometry, robotics, and systems biology. He received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2005 and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2006 and he's recently served as director of graduate programs for his department and as president of the Southeastern Atlantic Section of SIAM.

Topic of Keynote: Geometric Mechanics in Aquatic Locomotion and Particle Manipulation

Keynote Abstract

Dr. Youmin Zhang

    Dr. Youmin Zhang is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and & Concordia Institute of Aerospace Design and Innovation (CIADI) at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Zhang received his BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees from the Department of Automatic Control, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China.
    Dr. Zhang and his team’s main research interests and experience are in the areas of condition monitoring, fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control systems; cooperative guidance, navigation and control of unmanned aerial/ground/surface vehicles with various engineering and practical applications; dynamic systems modeling, estimation, identification and control; and advanced signal processing techniques for diagnosis, prognosis and health management of safety-critical systems, renewable energy systems and smart grids, and manufacturing processes.
    He has published 4 books, over 330 journal and conference papers, and book chapters. His comprehensive review paper published at Annual Reviews in Control on “Bibliographical Review on Reconfigurable Fault-tolerant Control Systems” has gained significant impact in the field worldwide. The paper has been ranked No. 1 in the “Most Cited Articles” published since 1996 and the highest citation ever in the journal.
    Prof. Zhang has been invited to give international conference plenary talks and research seminars worldwide for more than 45 times since 2005. He serves as a member of the IFAC Technical Committee (TC) on Fault Detection, Supervision and Safety for Technical Processes (SAFEPROCESS), the AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Program Committee (PC) on Unmanned Systems, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society TC on Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (ARUAV), and the ASME/IEEE TC on Mechatronics and Embedded Systems and Applications (MESA).
    He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Instrumentation, Automation and Systems (JIAS), an Editorial Board Member and/or (Editor-at-Large, Associate) Editor of 6 other international journals (including 3 newly launched journals on Unmanned Systems). He has served as General Chair, Program Chair, Program Vice-chair and IPC member of many international conferences. Recently, he served as the General Chair of The 10th International Conference on Intelligent Unmanned Systems (ICIUS 2014), Sept. 29 - Oct. 1, 2014, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (http://www.icius2014.org/); Program Chair of 2014 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS 2014), May 27-30, 2014, Orlando, USA; and currently one of General Chairs of The 2015 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS 2015), June 9-12, 2015, Denver, USA (http://www.uasconferences.com/). Dr. Zhang is a senior member of AIAA and IEEE, a member of AUVSI/USC, CASI, and CSME.

Topic of Keynote: Opportunities, Challenges, Developments and Applications of Unmanned Systems

Keynote Abstract