IC2AI’25

Beirut–Lebanon February 11-13 2025

International Conference on

Control, Automation, and Instrumentation

Imad H. Elhajj
American University of Beirut, Lebanon
 
Title: To AI or not to AI
Abstract:
There is an on-going debate about the use of AI in certain applications and its potential to replace human operators. In our research, we approach the question differently by looking at ways to integrate AI and humans in the decision-making loop. This way the limitations of each could be mitigated by this “shared” control/path planning/mapping/etc approach. We have demonstrated that, if well designed, AI and humans can work in a complimentary way to improve the performance of robotic and other systems. While doing so the physical and mental load on the operator is reduced. In this talk, we will motivate this human/AI in the loop model and demonstrate its advantages in various applications with a focus on robotics.
 
Biography:
Imad H. Elhajj is a Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is the Associate Dean for Academic Transformation at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at the American University of Beirut. In 2014, he co-founded SAUGO 360, the first startup to be incubated at AUB, and in 2017 he co-founded the Humanitarian Engineering Initiative at AUB. Dr. Elhajj is the past chair of IEEE Lebanon Section. He has served as an ABET program evaluator since 2013. His research interests are at the intersection of robotics, networking, and human machine interfacing with applications in health and environment. Dr. Elhajj is recipient of the IEEE Outstanding Branch Counselor and Advisor Award (2019), the Teaching Excellence Award at the American University of Beirut (2011), the Kamal Salibi Academic Freedom Award (2014), and the most Outstanding Graduate Student Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University (2001).
Clara Mihaela Ionescu
Ghent University, Belgium
 
Title: How digital twins and machine learning resolve data scarcity and poor excitability in real time decision-making in healthcare systems
Abstract:
Our patient digital twin including digitalization of the operation room or critical care room and human in the loop is a comprehensive platform for establishing new therapies, methodologies and validating protocols of trauma and critical care in emergency care units. Our solutions for Adaptive Multi-drug Infusion Control system for general Anesthesia integrates human expertise with computer optimization to create a successful solution for breakthrough into clinical practice. In presence of scarce data availability and limited versatility in producing excitability nodes for model identification and design model based control strategies, it is challenging to make decisions in real time due to epistemic uncertainty.
 
A potential complementary tool is Artificial intelligence (AI), as it becomes an integrating unit in all societal-impact applications. In this plenary talk we look at what challenges make AI not directly applicable for certain dynamic processes, and what are its limitations. One of the most (controversial) experience in practice is the fact that data volumes are (very) large, but the information content is limited to offer AI a solution that is also directly actionable. We develop methodologies and algorithms to deal with these limitations in data content/accessibility and allow complementary AI results to combine with traditional methods for the optimal result.
 
The combined digital twin with AI features is a co-piloting system of computer based optimization with human experience and comes to aid less experienced anesthesiologists and decision-making in presence of less uncertainty, thereby increasing the safety of the proposed drug dosage profiles.
 
The proposed solution involves a collective expert support to reach optimal dosage for best outcome under worst operating conditions, whether this is contextual (lack of resources) or human-centric (lack of expertise, unavailable patient information).
 
Biography:
Clara Mihaela Ionescu is professor at Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, at Ghent University, Belgium since October 2016. She is a research-member of the laboratory of Dynamical Systems and Control. She was recipient of prestigious excellence scholarship for top-performing master students going abroad from the Romanian Ministry of Research and Innovation to Ghent University in 2002. She holds a master degree in Control Engineering and Artificial Intelligence in 2003 from Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Romania, and a PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from Ghent University in 2009. She was also recipient of prestigious excellent post-doctoral scholarship of Flemish Research Foundation, of Belgium for 6 years, from 2011 - 2017. She is an ERC Consolidator Grant fellow: AMICAS, Adaptive Multi-Drug Infusion Control System for General Anesthesia during Major Surgery from October 2022 to September 2027. She has more than 300 scientific publications in Web of Science with h-index of 36 (Google Scholar index 45). She organized two IFAC conferences: Advances in PID control in 2018 and Biology and Medical Systems in 2021. She is the recipient of several international awards in biomedical, control and innovation engineering.
 
Ali Hayek
Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences, Germany
 
Title: Functional Safety in Embedded Systems
Abstract:
With the ongoing miniaturization of semiconductor structures more and more functions can be implemented on a single chip. System-on-Chips today integrate a complete system on a single silicon die. This recent development has led to ever more complex electronic circuits and thus to an increased failure probability in such circuits. In order to develop reliable integrated circuits several measures are required. According to several application specific safety standards, Functional Safety of embedded electronic control systems, a base for the realization of qualitative and quantitative analysis of reliability availability and safety of silicon chips is given. In this talk the advantages and challenges of integrating safety-related architectures according to recent safety standards are presented. In addition, recent research and development in this area is introduced.
 
Biography:
Ali Hayek did his M.Sc. in electrical engineering and information technology from technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) in 2005. He completed his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science in 2010 from Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer science, University of Kassel, Germany. He was a senior research fellow in Department of Computer Architecture and System Programming, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Kassel, Germany. He is currently professor for Hardware Engineering at the Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany. Specializing in Hardware Engineering and Functional Safety, Prof. Hayek provides insights into the development of dependable and scalable hardware platforms that support embedded control systems, particularly in safety-critical systems. His research interests include embedded systems for dependable IoT systems and safety related systems-on-chip

Important Dates

  • Full Paper Submission : October 25th, 2024, December 8, 2024
  • Paper’s Notification: December 28th, 2024
  • Camera Ready Submission: January 15th, 2025

IC2AI