Keynote Speakers
Gerhard P. Hancke (M’88, SM’00, F’16, LF’19) received the B.Sc., B.Eng. and M.Eng. from the University of Stellenbosch, and the D.Eng. from the University of Pretoria (UP), both in South Africa. He is a Professor with the Colleges for Automation and Artificial Intelligence at the Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China, and the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at UP.
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He is recognized internationally as a pioneer and leading scholar in Industrial Wireless Sensor Network (IWSN) research and was elevated to IEEE Fellow “for contributions to wireless sensor networks”. He co-edited a textbook, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Applications, Protocols and Standards (2013), the first on the topic. He initiated and co-edited the first Special Issues on Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks in the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (TIE) in 2009 and the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (TII) in 2013. He received the TII Best Paper Award (on IWSN) for 2012.
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He has acted as AE and GE for TII, TIE and IEEE Access, Co-EiC for TII (2019-22), and Senior Editor for IEEE Access (2019-22). Currently, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, (since 2023).
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He has been and is very active in the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, amongst others, as Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of the Technical Committee on Building Automation, Control and Management, Representative on the Steering Committee of the Transactions on Mobile Computing (2004–07), IES Secretary (2006–11) and (Senior) AdCom Member (since 2000). He served on many Standing Committees, such as Chair/Member of the Constitution and Bylaws Committee (2006–11/2014–17, and 2020–23), Member/Chair of the Fellow Evaluation Committee (2017-18/2019–20), member of the Nominations and Appointment Committee (2018–21), and currently the Publications Committee (for the 6th year).
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Over the years he served as General Chair of three IES Flagship Conferences (such as INDIN2007, ISIE1998 and ICIT2013) and on various IPC’s, TPC’s, and as Session Chairman at IES Conferences (INDIN, IECON, ICIT and ISIE). In IEEE Region 8 he is well-known for chairing the IEEE Region 8 Conference for Africa, AFRICON, in George, South Africa (2002), Gaborone, Botswana (2004), Nairobi Kenya (2009), Victoria Falls, Zambia (2011) and Cape Town (SA) (2017). He received the IEEE Larry K. Wilson Award (2007) “For inspiring membership development and services as a member of several regional and technical conferences worldwide".
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He served on the IEEE Board of Directors (BoD) Level, amongst others, as Vice-Chair: Member Development, Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) Board (2008–09), Chair: BoD Ethics & Member Conduct Committee (2010–11), Chair: Admission & Advancement Committee (2010–11), Chair: MGA Member Engagement and Life Cycle Committee (2009), Member of the Conduct Review Committee (2022–23).
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Speech Title: AIoT-Based Smart Manufacturing → The Transition from Industry 4.0 to 5.0
Abstract: The concept of Industry 4.0, also called the 4th Industrial Revolution or 4IR, originated in Germany in 2011, but it was much later before it was widely accepted and implemented in industry. Firstly, the rationale behind Industry 4.0 and the role of AI and IoT (AIoT) is introduced. Traditional industries suffered from high labor costs, large carbon emissions, low levels of intelligence, low efficiency, unstable quality control, safety, etc. Industry 4.0 created an entity of autonomous and intelligent methods. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have powered this revolution with automation, smart factories and smart manufacturing. Industry 4.0 was undeniably one of the most important industrial phenomena to have occurred in the last decade. The second part introduced Industry 5.0 as the emerging paradigm that has evolved from Industry 4.0. While Industry 4.0 focused on automation and integration of cyber-physical systems, Industry 5.0 is about the re-integration of the human aspect. The primary focus is on collaboration between humans and machines with an additional efficiency and sustainability. An important aspect to keep in mind is the integration of Industry 4.0 enabled technologies in future 5IR factories, while preserving and maximizing the core values of Industry 5.0.
Prof. Gerhard P. Hancke
IEEE Life Fellow
Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Li Zhang is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering (MAE) and a Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Surgery at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also a director of the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) – CUHK Joint Laboratory of Robotics and Intelligent Systems. Before he joined CUHK as an Assistant Professor in 2012, he worked in Prof. Bradley Nelson’s group as a postdoc and then as a senior scientist and lecturer in the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland.
Dr. Zhang’s main research interests include small-scale robotics, from individual and multiple robots to swarms, and their applications for translational biomedicine. He has authored or co-authored over 300 publications, including Science Robotics, Nature Machine Intelligence, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, Matter, ACS Nano, AFM, TRO, IJRR, SoRo, Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, as the corresponding author. His H-index is 70 and 63 based on Google Scholar Citations and Web of Science, respectively. His research work on artificial bacterial flagella was indexed by the Guinness Book of World Records 2012 for the “Most Advanced Mini Robot for Medical Use.” And his research work on magnetic slime robot was selected as “Top 10 Innovation and Technology News in Hong Kong in 2022”. Dr. Zhang has won several awards from IEEE international conferences, including NANOMED 2010, ICRA 2010, IROS 2012, Living Machines 2013, CASE 2020, ICARM 2020, 3M-NANO 2021, and MARSS 2022. He won the Hong Kong Research Grants Committee (RGC) Early Career Award in 2013, CUHK Young Researcher Award 2017, United College Early Career Research Excellence Merit Award 2018, CUHK Research Excellence Award 2019-20, and RGC Research Fellow (RFS) Award 2021/22. He currently serves as Editor/Associate Editor/Editorial Board Member of ten international journals, such as IEEE TRO, IEEE/ASME T-MECH, IEEE T-ASE, IEEE T-MRB, Advanced Intelligent Systems (Wiley), Biomicrofluidics (AIP), Research (SPJ/AAAS) and Med-X (Springer). Dr. Zhang is a Distinguished Lecturer appointed by IEEE NTC in 2020 and 2021. Since 2012 (after he joined CUHK), he has been acted/acting as PC/PI for over 26 competitive grants from RGC (15 projects including Early Career Award, RFS Award, STG, RIF, EU-RGC, GRF, JLFS, and PROCORE-HK JRS), ITC (8 projects including MRP, Tier-2, Tier-3, PSTS, and TSSSU), the Croucher Foundation (3 projects including Croucher Advanced Study Institute), NSFC and Shenzhen government. He is also Co-PI in 2 RGC CRF projects. Dr. Zhang is an Outstanding Fellow of the Faculty of Engineering at CUHK and elected as a Fellow of IEEE (FIEEE), Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (FAAIA).
Prof. Li Zhang
IEEE Fellow, RSC Fellow, AAIA Fellow
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
Prof. Mariagrazia Dotoli
IEEE Fellow
Information Engineering of the Polytechnic of Bari, Italy
Dr. Mariagrazia Dotoli holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and is a Full Professor in Systems and Control Engineering at Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Politecnico di Bari, Italy, where she is also the founder and coordinator of the Italian National PhD Program on Autonomous Systems and was the Vice Rector for research and a member elect of the Academic Senate.
She is the founder and director of the Decision and Control Laboratory of Politecnico di Bari, Italy and was the founder and coordinator of the PhD Program on Industry 4.0 of the same University. She is the founder of Politecnico di Bari spin-off company Innolab S.r.l. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Italian MEDITECH competence center for Industry 4.0 funded by the Italian Ministry for Economic Development.
She has been a visiting scholar at the Paris 6 University, France, and at the Technical University of Denmark. She is an expert evaluator of the European Commission and of many more national research centers in Europe.
Her research interests include decision and control approaches for energy systems, smart manufacturing, intelligent logistics, transportation systems and smart cities. She is author of 200+ international publications in these fields, including 1 textbook (in Italian) and 100+ international journal papers.
She is a Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, and an Associate Editor the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems. She was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters until 2018.
She served in the organization of many well-reputed international conferences. Currently, she is the General chair of the 2024 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.
She is the IEEE Systems Man and Cybernetics Society (SMCS) Vice President elect for biennium 2023-2024 for Membership and Student activities. She served as Editor in Chief of the SMCS eNewsletter, co-chair and founder of the SMCS Technical Committee on Intelligent Systems for Human-Aware Sustainability, member at large of the SMCS Board of Governors, Chair of the SMCS Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and Liaison of SMCS with IEEE TAB Committee on Diversity and Inclusion.
Prof. Okyay Kaynak
IEEE Life Fellow
Bogazici University, Türkiye
Turkish Academy of Sciences, Türkiye
Okyay Kaynak received the B.Sc. degree with first-class honors and Ph.D. degrees in electronic and electrical engineering from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 1969 and 1972, respectively. From 1972 to 1979, he held various positions within the industry. In 1979, he joined the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. He is currently a Professor Emeritus of this university. He has held long-term (near to or more than a year) Visiting Professor/Scholar positions at various institutions in Japan, Germany, the U.S., Singapore, and China. His current research interests are in the broad field of intelligent systems. He has authored three books, edited five, and authored or co-authored more than 500 papers that have appeared in various journals and conference proceedings.
Dr. Kaynak has served as the Editor in Chief of IEEE Trans. on Industrial Informatics, IEEE/ASME Trans. on Mechatronics and as the Co-Editor in Chief of IEEE Trans. on Industrial Electronics. He presently serves as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Cyber Physical Systems. Additionally, he is on the Editorial or Advisory Boards of several scholarly journals. He has received the Chinese Government’s Friendship Award, Humboldt Research Prize, Doctor Honoris Causa, Obuda University, Hungary and the Academy Prize of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (2020). He is a member of this Academy. Most recently, he was cited as the Fellow of Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (2023), the Fellow of Industry Academy within the International Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance (2024) and the Fellow of the Asian Control Association (2024).
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Speech Title: AI-Empowered Human-Machine Systems
Abstract: Over the past two decades, we have witnessed profound technological advancements fueled by disruptive innovations in both software and hardware. These changes have been accompanied by a convergence of information, communication, and control technologies, driving what is now known as digital transformation—the integration of digital technology into all areas of business. This transformation has fundamentally altered how organizations operate, interact, and deliver value. At its core, digital transformation increasingly focuses on human-machine systems, where technology and human intelligence combine to create more efficient, adaptable, and innovative processes. A significant recent development is the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has emerged as a primary enabler and facilitator in enhancing these human-machine systems. AI is poised to profoundly reshape society, economy, healthcare, and technology—including mechatronics, historically one of the earliest fields to merge human and machine capabilities.
The study of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been an enduring endeavor for scientists and engineers for over 65 years. The fundamental premise is that machines created by humans can go beyond performing labor-intensive tasks to achieving human-like intelligence and collaboration. This concept aligns deeply with the evolution of human-machine systems, which seek to balance the strengths of human ingenuity with machine precision and efficiency. AI has long captivated researchers, reflecting two intrinsic human traits: the relentless drive for higher productivity and an innate curiosity to understand and reshape the world. Despite experiencing periods of stagnation, often referred to as "AI winters," the technology has matured into a leading force, transforming human-machine interactions in unprecedented ways. As AI continues to shape human-machine systems, it is crucial to reflect on its past, present, and future roles—both as a transformative tool and as an integral component of fields like mechatronics.
