About me

I am currently an Assistant Professor at the Pennsylvania State University and the head of the Control and Automation for Intelligent Systems (CAIS) Lab. I have a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering.

I received my Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and my B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, with a minor in Computer Science, from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

My research interests lie at the intersection of several areas:

  • Control and Automation

  • Artificial Intelligence

  • Dynamic and Complex Systems

  • Robotics

Specifically, I am interested in developing distributed, cooperative system-level control strategies for complex systems, such as smart manufacturing systems.

Recent news

  • Apr 2022 - Our paper "Towards an Automated Learning Control Architecture for Cyber-Physical Manufacturing Systems " is published in IEEE Access (link).

  • Mar 2022 - Our paper "Cooperative Product Agents to Improve Manufacturing System Flexibility: A Model-Based Decision Framework" is published in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, Open Access (link).

  • Feb 2022 - Launched the new Control and Automation for Intelligent Systems (CAIS) lab website.

  • Jan 2022 - Started a position as an Assistant Professor at the Pennsylvania State University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering.

  • Dec 2021 - A preprint of our paper "Cooperative Product Agents to Improve Manufacturing System Flexibility: A Model-Based Decision Framework" is now available (link).

  • Oct 2021 - Our paper "Dynamic Resource Allocation Using Multi-Agent Control for Manufacturing Systems" was presented at MECC 2021 and is now available online (link).

  • Aug 2021 - Our paper "Manufacturing Line Design Configuration with Optimized Resource Groups" based on joint work with Hitachi, Ltd., was presented at CASE 2021 and is now available online (link).

  • April 2021 - Successfully finished teaching a new robotics course - ROB 103: Robotics Mechanisms. Here is a news article about this class.

  • Mar 2021 - Our paper "A Methodology to Develop and Implement Digital Twin Solutions for Manufacturing Systems" is published in IEEE Access (link).

  • Feb 2021 - Our paper "Model Predictive Control of Priced Timed Automata Encoded With First-Order Logic" is published in IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology (link).

  • Dec 2020 - Developing a new engineering course - Robotics Mechanisms. I'm very excited to teach it next semester!

  • Nov 2020 - Our paper "Priced Timed Automata Models for Control of Intelligent Product Agents in Manufacturing Systems" was presented at the 15th Workshop on Discrete Event Systems (WODES) and is now available online (link).

  • Sept 2020 - Started a postdoctoral position with Prof. Kira Barton and Prof. Dawn Tilbury.

  • Aug 2020 - Graduated from the University of Michigan.

Contact me

Email: iqk5135 (at) psu (dot) edu

Address: 236 Leonhard Building, University Park, PA 16802 United States of America