Activity report of the 9th International Workshop on Sensing, Actuation, Motion Control, and Optimization (SAMCON2023)

The 9th International Workshop on Sensing, Actuation, Motion Control, and Optimization (SAMCON 2023), jointly organized by Southeast University and Jiangsu Automation Society and co-organized by IEEE Nanjing Section IE Chapter, was successfully held on March 24, 2023 at Liuyuan Hotel, Sipailou Campus of Southeast University. Three scholars from home and abroad gave academic presentations, and more than 120 high level papers were accepted, attracting more than 300 experts and scholars from home and abroad. The conference aims to provide a platform for engineers, researchers and scholars from home and abroad to exchange and discuss the current status and future prospects of the development of sensing, drive, motion control and optimization technologies.

In the morning of March 24, Prof. Jing Na from Kunming University of Science and Technology, the chairman of the program committee, gave an opening speech to introduce the organization of the forum.

Host: Prof. Jing Na

Prof. Haikun Wei, Executive Dean of the School of Automation, Southeast University, delivered a welcome speech on behalf of the School of Automation, Southeast University. Prof. Haikun Wei introduced the basic information of Southeast University and the School of Automation, and pointed out that this conference aims to create a platform to share knowledge, exchange ideas and explore potential collaborations. Finally, he expressed his hopes that this event will inspire new research, innovation and progress and benefit the whole society.

Opening Speaker: Prof. Haikun Wei

After that, Prof. Shihua Li, the chairman of the meeting, the vice dean of the School of Automation of Southeast University and the chairman of Jiangsu Automation Society, delivered a welcome speech. Prof. Shihua Li introduced the basic situation of Jiangsu Automation Society, which is committed to establishing a service platform for domestic and international academic exchange and technical cooperation for scientific and technical groups and workers, and continuously expanding friendly exchanges with international academic institutions, scientific and technical groups and scientific and technical workers. Prof. Shihua Li expressed his heartfelt thanks to the organizers and staff who overcame many difficulties in organizing the conference.

Opening Speaker: Prof. Shihua Li

After that, Prof. Hitoshi Hayashiya, Chairman of IEEJ IAS Committee, gave a speech, briefly introduced the development history of IEEJ, pointed out that this conference aims to build an international academic exchange and technical service cooperation platform for science and technology researchers from all over the world, and hoped that all the experts and scholars attending the conference could gain something, expressed his gratitude to the participants and organizers of this conference, and wished the conference a complete success.

Opening Speaker: Prof. Hitoshi Hayashiya

Prof. Yutaka Uchimura, the co-chair of the conference, gave a speech, firstly, he expressed his appreciation for the work of the co-organizers and organizers of the conference, pointed out the importance of the conference held in China for the first time for the academic cooperation between China and Japan, and expressed his hope for the future academic exchange between the two countries. At the end of the opening ceremony, Prof. Wenhua Chen from Loughborough University, UK, gave a wonderful presentation.

Opening Speaker: Prof. Yutaka Uchimura

During the three-day conference, Prof. Wenhua Chen from Loughborough University, Prof. Zongxuan Sun from University of Minnesota, and Prof. Peng Yan from Shandong University gave presentations entitled “Integration of Disturbance Preview with Online Optimisation”, “Real-time Optimization and Motion Control for Off-Road Vehicles”, “Nano Precision Servo Control for Piezo Actuated Motion Systems: Design and Industrial Applications”, the experts’ reports were detailed and vivid, and the participants had active communication and interaction with them. The participants actively interacted with the experts and had a lively discussion on the related topics.

Prof. Wenhua Chen, from the Department of Aerospace and Automotive Engineering, Loughborough University, UK, is an IEEE Fellow, IMechE Fellow, IET Fellow with considerable experience in control, signal processing and artificial intelligence and their applications in aerospace, automotive and agricultural systems. In this presentation, Prof. Chen introduced an approach that combines perturbation observer techniques with online optimization, which not only improves perturbation rejection to further enhance the performance of control systems, but also exploits unexpected opportunities arising from perturbations or environmental uncertainties, thus making it more beneficial to achieve specific goals.

Report by Prof. Wenhua Chen

Prof. Zongxuan Sun is from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota and is currently the recipient of the Charles E. Bowers Faculty Teaching Award, Director of CCEFP, the George W. Taylor Career Development Award from the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering, and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Prof. Sun’s research interests include control and mechatronics, with applications to propulsion systems for automobiles and commercial vehicles. In this presentation, Prof. Sun discusses a framework for real-time optimization of vehicle motion and powertrain operation. This optimization and motion control will lay the foundation for autonomous off-road vehicles that can significantly reduce energy consumption and increase productivity.

Report by Prof. Zongxuan Sun

Prof. Peng Yan is currently the director of the Institute of Mechatronics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, and a National Ten Thousand Talents Program Leading Talent Inductee. His current research interests include the design and control of nanomanipulated systems and their applications. In this presentation, Prof. Peng Yan pointed out that the design and servo technology of piezoelectric driven motion systems is a key technology to support high performance nano-positioning and nano-scanning, and focused on some recent advances in the design and servo technology of piezoelectric driven motion systems (nano-precision servo control), and provided some representative case studies to illustrate the industrial applications of such systems.

Report by Prof. Peng Yan

There were not only three wonderful conference presentations, but also more than 120 accepted high-level papers were reported in 22 groups, which attracted more than 300 experts and scholars from home and abroad. Many young scholars have also made wonderful academic presentations in the group reports. The participating experts and scholars fully discussed and exchanged their views on several frontier hot issues in the fields of sensing, drive, motion control and optimization, including emerging and breakthrough research in developing motion control technology, modeling and adaptive control of nonlinear servo systems, motion control of highly functional electromechanical systems, intelligent sensing applications for human assisted systems, haptics and data robotics, advanced motion control methods for modern electromechanical systems , sensing technology and its applications, drives and their applications, control theory and its applications, robotics and mechatronics, human-machine interaction and bilateral control, machine learning and advanced techniques for optimal control, etc.

Breakout group reports

On March 26, the conference report entered the closing stage, and the award ceremony and closing ceremony were hosted by Xiangyu Wang, Secretary General of Jiangsu Automation Society, and Prof. Kenji Natori of Chiba University, the representative of Japanese side, announced the four award-winning papers. After the award ceremony, the handover ceremony of SAMCON series conference work was held.

Xiangyu Wang, Secretary General of Jiangsu Automation Association, hosted the award ceremony

At the end of the closing ceremony, the conference was summarized by Prof. Shihua Li, the conference chair of SAMCON 2023. Prof. Shihua Li expressed that the conference was a complete success and expressed his gratitude to all the guests, the organizing committee and volunteers, and finally expressed his expectation for SAMCON 2024.

Prof. Shihua Li gave the concluding speech of the conference

Group photo of SAMCON 2023 attendees

The conference was well received by the participants. The success of the conference has built a good platform for the exchange and cooperation between domestic and foreign experts and scholars, and played an important role in further promoting the development of sensing, drive technology, motion control and optimization technology.