MAE Distinguished Speaker Series 2025 Seminar on Bayesian Learning and Bio-Inspired Autonomous Search in Aquatic Environment

07 Oct 2025 03.00 PM - 04.00 PM LT6 (North Spine, NS2-02-05) Current Students, Public

Seminar Recording_Prof Zhang Fumin.mp4

Professor Zhang Fumin

Chair Professor and Director

The Cheng Kar-Shun Robotics Institute

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

This seminar will be chaired by Prof Yeong Wai Yee.

Seminar Abstract

Search and rescue in aquatic environments can be very challenging and costly.  The employment of robotic platforms and autonomy might significantly increase the efficiency and reduce the risk to humans in search and rescue missions. Motivated by insights from the autonomous collective foraging behaviors performed by animals in aquatic environments, this talk introduces models and provable strategies from control theory and robotics towards bio-inspired autonomous search operations. The bio-inspired methods generalize to a Bayesian learning framework where insights from biology are well justified by systems theory such as reachability, consistency, and optimality.  Experimental effort with promising results demonstrates that bio-inspired autonomy might be preferred in aquatic environment that features severe limitation in communication, localization, and power consumption. 

Speaker's Biography 

Dr. ‪Fumin ZHANG ‪is Chair Professor and Director of the Cheng Kar-Shun Robotics Institute at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He was the Dean’s Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology during 2007-2023. He received a PhD degree in 2004 from the University of Maryland (College Park) in Electrical Engineering and held a postdoctoral position in Princeton University from 2004 to 2007. His research interests include mobile sensor networks, maritime robotics, control systems, and theoretical foundations for cyber-physical systems. He received the NSF CAREER Award in September 2009 and the ONR Young Investigator Program Award in April 2010. He is currently serving as the co-chair for the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Marine Robotics, associate editors for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and IEEE Transactions on Control of Networked Systems, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, and International Journal of Robotics Research. He is Fellow of IEEE.

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