Dr Erfu Yang
Senior Lecturer
Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management
Personal statement
Dr Erfu Yang is a Senior Lecturer in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Group within the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) at the University of Strathclyde. In 2008, he received his Ph.D. degree in robotics from the University of Essex, Colchester, UK, within the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering. Before joining the DMEM, he was a research fellow in the Cognitive Signal Image and Control Processing Research (COSIPRA) Laboratory at the University of Stirling, UK. Previously, as a research fellow he also worked in the Department of Mechanical and Control Systems Engineering (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) and School of Engineering (University of Edinburgh, UK). His main research interests include robotics, autonomous systems, computer vision, image/signal processing, mechatronics, data analytics, manufacturing automation, multi-objective optimizations, and applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence including multi-agent reinforcement learning, fuzzy logic, neural networks, bio-inspired algorithms, and cognitive computation, etc. He has over 160 publications in these areas, including more than 80 journal papers and 10 book chapters. Dr Yang has been awarded over 15 research grants as PI (principal investigator) or CI (co-investigator). He is the Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, Member of the UK Engineering Professors’ Council, Senior Member of the IEEE Society of Robotics and Automation, IEEE Control Systems Society, Publicity Co-Chair of the IEEE UK and Ireland Industry Applications Chapter, Committee Member of the IET SCOTLAND Manufacturing Technical Network. Dr Yang has been a Scientific/Technical Programme Committee member or organizer for a series of international conferences and workshops. He is an associate editor for the Cognitive Computation journal published by Springer.
Prize And Awards
- Best Conference Paper Award
- Recipient
- 2/7/2025
- TOP CITED ARTICLE 2023-2024
- Recipient
- 8/4/2025
- Top 2% Scientists
- Recipient
- 16/9/2024
- IEEE Outstanding Service Award
- Recipient
- 30/8/2023
- Best Poster for RoVER VIP Project at the ESD@Strath Conference 2023
- Recipient
- 30/3/2023
- TOP CITED ARTICLE 2021-2022
- Recipient
- 21/2/2023
Publications
- A neural network approach to image-based navigation and localization
- Short Daniel L, Lei Tingjun, Liu Lantao, Luo Chaomin, Yang Erfu
- 2025 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) International Joint Conference on Neural Networks 2025 2025 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1109/IJCNN64981.2025.11227291
- Teleoperation control for robotic systems in hazardous environments : overview and challenges
- Khedr Mohamed, Le Quang Dan, Yang Erfu
- 2025 30th International Conference on Automation and Computing (ICAC) The 30th International Conference on Automation and Computing (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAC65379.2025.11196301
- A modular teleoperation system for reliable and safer robotic manipulation with integrated force and visual feedback
- Khedr Mohamed, Yang Erfu
- 2025 30th International Conference on Automation and Computing (ICAC) The 30th International Conference on Automation and Computing (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAC65379.2025.11196247
- Autonomous poultry farming in the UK : a review of technologies and challenges
- Morsi Nour, Khedr Mohamed, Yang Erfu, Masood Tariq, Maier Anja, Campbell Karen, Wallace Ashley
- 2025 30th International Conference on Automation and Computing (ICAC) The 30th International Conference on Automation and Computing (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAC65379.2025.11196305
- CNN-based ResNet-101 : a high-accuracy quality control inspection approach for industrial applications in liquid spreading on skin-mimic substrates
- Othman Uqba, Ait Ameur Mohamed Adlan, Yang Erfu, Torres Ophelie
- 2025 International Conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management & Applications (SKIMA) The 16th International Conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management and Applications (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1109/SKIMA66621.2025.11155456
- MICA : a multimodal intelligent cognitive assessment framework integrating generative AI and social robot for early cognitive intervention
- Ait Ameur Mohamed Adlan, Yang Erfu, McGeown William J, Zhang Yin-Ping
- Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare 2025 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol 16038, pp. 96-109 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-00652-3_8
Professional Activities
- Game Changers Technology Talk: Micro UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle)
- Participant
- 17/7/2025
- David Duncan
- Host
- 16/7/2025
- Manufacturing Review (Journal)
- Editorial board member
- 8/7/2025
- Connected Robotics
- Participant
- 30/6/2025
- BridgeAI Annual Showcase 2025
- Participant
- 15/6/2025
- Hyperion Course on Proposal Writing for Pillar II (Horizon Europe)
- Participant
- 11/6/2025
Projects
- Cobot-enabled Nondestructive Quality Control in Production Lines with Advanced Vision and Machine Learning for Smart Manufacturing
- Yang, Erfu (Principal Investigator) Millar, Richard (Co-investigator)
- The overall research aim of this project is to fundamentally investigate the novel Cobot-enabled nondestructive quality control strategies by enabling holistic control and interactions of collaborative robots in complex human-robot collaborative manufacturing environments such that safety and interaction of nearby humans/operators can be maintained while the in-process inspection and quality control are being done. It is also critical to understand how to ensure the efficiency and flexibility of the manufacturing process can be achieved when process variations or environmental changes occur in advanced manufacturing systems. It is important that the Cobot-enabled nondestructive quality control is able to work collaboratively in a safe manner around a designated area of production lines, such as automated egg packaging stations. In a busy manufacturing environment, there can be no errors leading to production down.
- 01-Jan-2025 - 30-Jan-2028
- KTP - Glenrath Farms Ltd. Development of an intelligent collaborative robot system for smart farm manufacturing (iCoBOTS).
- Yang, Erfu (Principal Investigator) Maier, Anja (Co-investigator) Masood, Tariq (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2026
- Intelligent Human-Robot Collaboration for Future Advanced Healthcare Applications
- Yang, Erfu (Principal Investigator) Liang, Sha (Co-investigator) Ait Ameur, Mohamed Adlan (Researcher)
- The aim of this project is to investigate an intelligent human-robot interaction for advanced healthcare applications, which will leverage advanced computer vision, robotics, artificial intelligence to enable patent-oriented medical and health functions. Together with the cutting-edge human friendly robot system such as cobots to form a new advanced intelligent human-robot system, realise the robot healthcare applied in patients’ home, hospitals and other complex environments to achieve autonomous activities, active identification, assistance and emergency treatment, and alarm functions of sudden diseases, and remote coordination with caregivers and doctors to provide accurate support and assistance for their care, and complete the care and treatment of the elderly and patients.
- 01-Jan-2023 - 30-Jan-2026
- Adaptive Path Planning and Visual Navigation of Autonomous Inspection Robots in Challenging Environments
- Yang, Erfu (Principal Investigator) Dobie, Gordon (Co-investigator) Jiang, Meiling (Researcher)
- This project aims to fundamentally investigate the novel adaptive path planning and visual navigation of robots (such as an industrial robot manipulator, Cobot, UAV etc.) for autonomous inspection by enabling holistic control and interactions of robots in complex, dynamic and changing environments such that safety and interaction of nearby humans/operators/other objects etc. can be maintained while the inspection tasks are taking place. At the same time, the efficiency and flexibility of the inspection process is also achieved when process variations or environmental changes take place.
- 01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2025
- MOEA/D-PPR: Path Planning of Robots in Complex Environments via the Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm Based on Decomposition
- Yang, Erfu (Principal Investigator) Dobie, Gordon (Co-investigator)
- 31-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2025
- Flexible Human-Robot Collaborative Inspection for In-Process Quality Control in Smart Manufacturing
- Yang, Erfu (Principal Investigator) Luo, Xichun (Co-investigator) Othman, Uqba (Researcher)
- The overall research aim of this project is to fundamentally investigate the novel flexible human-robot collaborative inspection strategies by enabling holistic control and interactions of collaborative robots in complex human-robot collaborative manufacturing environments such that safety and interaction of nearby humans/operators can be maintained while the in-process inspection and quality control are being done. At the same time, the efficiency and flexibility of the manufacturing process is also achieved when process variations or environmental changes occur in advanced manufacturing systems.
To achieve this aim, the proposed project will be focusing on the following three research objectives: 1) A comprehensive review of the state of the art in collaborative robotics and human-robot interactions towards smarter manufacturing in the digital age. 2) Investigation of novel concepts and algorithms for intelligent control, motion planning, and machine learning. 3) Development and testing of prototype sensing, Inspection with machine vision and NDT, path planning, and control system in the complex human-robot collaborative manufacturing environments. - 01-Jan-2021 - 30-Jan-2024
Contact
Dr
Erfu
Yang
Senior Lecturer
Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management
Email: erfu.yang@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 574 5279