Special Sessions |
In addition to the main technical program, the conference includes lunch-time and afternoon special sessions on industry, education, emerging topics, and funding opportunities. |
Wednesday Noon Special SessionsAn Overview of NSF Programs |
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
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Summary: The National Science Foundation (NSF) offers a number of funding opportunities for investigators working in the field of controls, both within the disciplinary programs in Engineering and other directorates, and through cross-cutting initiatives that are foundation-wide. This presentation will describe opportunities that are relevant to the robotics, dynamics and controls communities. The presentation will also describe programs targeted toward junior investigators, as well as guidelines for proposal preparation and NSF's Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts criteria. Question-and-answer session will follow the presentation. |
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Women in Control Luncheon Meeting |
Sponsor:
IEEE CSS Women in Control Committee
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Summary: The IEEE CSS Women in Control committee is responsible for, but not limited to, promoting membership, gathering and disseminating appropriate information about women in IEEE CSS and the profession, and facilitating the development of mentoring and programs to promote the retention, recruitment, and growth of women IEEE CSS members. The IEEE WiC invites all ACC women attendees to join us for our traditional luncheon with interesting speakers on the first day of the conference, Wednesday, July 1st, 2020. |
Research with Broad Scope and High Impact in an Industrial Laboratory |
Sponsor:
Mitsubishi Electric (MERL)
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Summary: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) is a leading research organization located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA that conducts fundamental research for industrially-motivated problems. MERL is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, a $41B global manufacturer of a wide range of products including industrial robots, automotive electronics and equipment, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems, factory automation equipment, electrical power systems, elevators, satellites, and information visualization systems. MERL is an active and collaborative member of both the academic and industrial communities. MERL researchers collaborate with corporate laboratories and business units in Japan, as well as academic partners from around the world to develop novel solutions to challenging problems. In particular, several researchers at MERL develops new theoretical results in control and systems theory and apply them to a wide variety of products and applications. In this talk we will present an overview of research activities at MERL, including fundamental controls research and the application of state-of-the-art control techniques to a variety of real-world systems. We will focus on fundamental research subjects including model predictive control and the control of constrained systems, estimation and motion planning for autonomous systems, and learning for control. In addition, we will describe how these fundamental research areas impact applications such as autonomous vehicles, spacecraft guidance and control, GNSS-based positioning, energy-efficient HVAC systems, high-precision manufacturing. We encourage students, researchers and faculty interested in collaborating with MERL to attend this talk. |
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Wednesday Afternoon Special SessionsWomen in Controls in Industry |
Sponsor:
ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division, Automotive and Transportation Systems Technical Committee and the Energy Systems Technical Committee
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Summary: Academic research and industry development have a symbiotic relationship. The insights gleaned from academic research can be propagated into usable products and technologies by companies. The practical problems identified in industry can also inspire and develop new academic research topics and areas and these new areas of research and development can be explored jointly. This cycle and relationship is key for researchers to understand and to participate in. To facilitate these connections, every year, the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division organizes an industry special session at a major controls conference. Nowadays, both academia and industry host increasingly diverse communities. These communities consist of researchers, engineers, teachers, programmers, and managers, and their members are thriving from many different backgrounds. A historically underrepresented group has been female engineers and engineers who identify as women. (For the purposes of brevity for this proposal, we will use the term "women" going forward.) This session seeks to bring together both the importance of exposure to parallel work happening in industry, with the diverse people who are doing the work, to the American Control Conference. Academia is taking increasingly large strides to increase diversity in both its student population as well as its faculty. Industry is doing the same, in both similar and diverging ways, with efforts ranging from recruiting, changing hiring practices, evolving performance review processes, workshops in unconscious bias, employee resource groups, and setting diversity and inclusion as a company-wide initiative. The speakers featured in this session have a variety of technical experiences and we aim to, first and foremost, focus on their technical work and present a wide array of different career paths. The purpose of this is twofold: 1) to showcase some of the current cutting-edge work being done in industry in controls, and 2) to demonstrate examples and inspire junior women researchers who may be looking for a broader range of career paths. The session will feature both a series of technical talks, as well as a panel discussion that will be moderated and open to questions from the audience, in order to provide room to discuss potential non-technical topics unique to the experience of being a woman in controls in industry. This special session is sponsored by the Automotive Transportation Systems and Energy Systems Technical Committee. The proposed list of speakers consists of engineers from the following companies: RightHook Robotics, Tesla, Applied Materials, Built Robotics, Waymo (Google), Ford, Toyota Research Institute, General Motors, and a stealth robotics startup. Organization and Contribution This session includes contributions from industry engineers who have been active in the areas of automotive, energy, and mechatronics research and development areas. The tentative list of speakers is compiled from the automotive, energy, robotics, and tech industries. The session is roughly organized into two parts. The first part (1:30 – 4:50 PM) features technical talks from each speaker in their area of expertise. The speakers featured come from a variety of different companies. We propose to feature speakers from RightHook, Applied Materials, Waymo (Google), Tesla, Built Robotics, and Ford, with additional speakers pending company approval from Toyota, GM, and a stealth robotics startup. These companies are all leading the industry in the automotive, robotics, and controls areas. The second part (4:50 PM – 5:30 PM) features a panel discussion with a subset of speakers, with Selina Pan (industry liaison from the Automotive Transportation Systems Technical Committee) as the moderator, welcoming questions from the audience. Being able to hear the speakers discuss their career and life experiences as women working in industry in controls has the potential to provide key insights and inspiration to aspiring junior engineers who are still seeking a career path in STEM, whether in research, academia, industry, or the start-up world. Because the session focuses on women in controls, we see great value in presenting the stories of established speakers behind their technical work. |
Presentations: |
Speaker(s):
Dr. Madeline Goh, RightHook Robotics
Speaker(s):
Dr. Caroline Le Floch, Tesla
Speaker(s):
Dr. Sarah Thor, Built Robotics
Speaker(s):
Dr. Xin Zhou, Waymo (Google)
Speaker(s):
Dr. Sara Dadras, Ford
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Speaker Biographies: |
Dr. Madeline Goh left Minnesota and academia after earning her PhD in mathematics to pursue a career in industry. She is particularly inspired by solving problems that impact people's daily lives, from barcodes to self-driving vehicles. Currently she is a Machine Learning Expert and Senior Engineer at San Jose based startup, RightHook, Inc. RightHook provides a simulation platform for testing and development of autonomous vehicles. Madeline is a people person and loves spending time with her siblings, urban exploration, puppies, and supporting women in technology. |
Dr. Caroline Le Floch leads the development of the Autobidder software at Tesla, the first automated and algorithmic bidding platform for utility scale energy storage. I obtained a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, France), and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. During my PhD in the Energy Controls and Applications Lab at UC Berkeley, I focused on Smart Charging optimization methods for large fleets of electric vehicles, including distributed optimization and Plug and Play model predictive Controls. After PhD I created a startup and sold smart charging software to automakers and aggregators. In May 2018 I joined the energy optimization team at Tesla, where I have focused on utility scale projects and the development of algorithmic bidding in energy markets. I am the leading engineer for Autobidder – the money making machine – that automates bidding of energy storage assets in electricity markets. |
Dr. Raechel Tan is a controls engineering manager in the Mechatronics Center of Excellence at Applied Materials. She leads a team to develop advanced solutions for temperature, pressure, and motion control across the company. Before starting at Applied Materials, she obtained her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley, where she did research on automotive engine control. |
Dr. Sarah Thornton received her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University in 2018. Her thesis was on designing autonomous vehicle motion planning algorithms with ethical considerations. She obtained her Master's in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2013 and her Bachelor's in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley in 2011. She currently works as a Senior Robotics Engineer at Built Robotics, where she has worked on an array of projects ranging from designing parts of their safety system to designing high-level planning algorithms. |
Dr. Xin Zhou received her PhD from the University of Michigan in Mechanical Engineering in 2017 with a focus on control, estimation, dynamic system modeling and identification. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, she received her Bachelor of Engineering in Machine Design, Manufacturing, and Automation from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2012. Dr. Zhou joined Aptiv immediately after receiving her doctorate to develop object tracking algorithms for advanced driver-assistance systems. In 2018, she joined Waymo as a Software Engineer/Robotics Researcher focusing on perception of the autonomous vehicle. She is the lead author of six publications and a finalist for three best student paper awards and a best paper award. |
Dr. Sara Dadras (IEEE Senior Member, 2018) is currently an Automated Driving Senior Research Engineer at Ford Motor Company. Prior to that, she was a research engineer working on research and development of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle systems with respect to energy management. Passionate about vehicles, she worked on various projects including battery management systems, wireless power transfer systems, model based system design for advanced HEVs and PHEVs. Her current research interest areas include autonomous vehicles, advanced driver assist systems, hybrid electric and electric vehicles, nonlinear systems and control, and application of fractional calculus in control of nonlinear systems. Dr. Dadras was the recipient of the 2019 Forest R. McFarland Award (SAE) and Ford 2018 R&A Technical Achievement Award (RARE Award). She is the Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, IEEE Access, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, Asian Journal of Control and Conference Editorial Board member of IEEE. |
NREL's Control Research: Enabling a Clean Energy Future |
Sponsor:
The Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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Summary: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located in Golden, Colorado, is the United States' primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. Control plays a crucial role in NREL's mission to advance the science and engineering of energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, renewable power technologies, and energy systems integration. This special session will provide an overview of NREL, followed by in-depth discussion of NREL's control research in various areas such as building, grid, wind, energy storage, and transportation. The goal of the session is to give the audience an opportunity to understand the typical control research projects at NREL and how to collaborate with NREL. |
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Workshop for Elementary, Middle and High School Students and Teachers and Parents: The Power, Beauty and Excitement of the Cross-Boundaries Nature of Control, a Field that Spans Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics |
Sponsor:
AACC, IEEE CSS, and IEEE CSS Technical Committee on Control Education
Program Committee:
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Summary: This outreach event is designed to increase the general awareness of the importance of systems and control technology and its cross-disciplinary nature among students and teachers. Control is used in many common devices and systems: cell phones, computer hard drives, automobiles, and aircraft, but is usually hidden from view. The control field spans science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The success of all STEM disciplines depends on attracting the most gifted young people to science and engineering professions. Early exposure to middle and high school students and their teachers is a key factor. The goal of these outreach efforts is to promote an increased awareness of the importance and cross-disciplinary nature of control and systems technology. Workshop activities include presentations, informal discussions, and the opportunity for teachers and students to meet passionate researchers and educators from academia and industry. The talks are designed to be educational, interactive, motivating and inspirational showing the excitement of STEM education. |
Presentations: |
Speaker(s):
Dr. Daniel Abramovitch, Agilent Technologies
Speaker(s):
Dr. Dominique Duncan, University of Southern California
Speaker(s):
Dr. Tembine Hamidou, New York University
Speaker(s):
Dr. Richard M. Murray, California Institute of Technology
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Title: Synthetic Biology: How to Program a Bacterium
Speaker(s):
Dr. Lucy Pao, University of Colorado Boulder
Speaker(s):
Dr. Ramla Qureshi, Women Engineers Pakistan (WEP)
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