Events

Abstract

Over more than a century of continual engineering refinement, ground vehicles have evolved into indispensable components of modern society, both shaping and being shaped by their ubiquitous interactions with humans. Their profound impact encompasses energy consumption, environmental sustainability, roadway safety, and quality of life. Originally conceived as purely mechanical systems, ground vehicles have undergone a paradigm shift, leveraging progress across multiple disciplines to meet the complex and ever-growing demands of contemporary transportation. These innovations have enabled the development of intelligent vehicles capable of addressing persistent challenges such as energy consumption, safety, environmental impact, and human acceptance. This talk explores several recent breakthroughs in ground mobility systems that highlight the transformative power of multidisciplinary synergy. Examples will be provided to illustrate how integrating diverse technologies and knowledge fosters innovations that may effectively address real-world mobility challenges.

About the Speaker

Junmin Wang a Professor and holds the Fletcher Stuckey Pratt Chair in Engineering in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.  In 2008, he started his academic career at Ohio State University where he was early promoted to Associate Professor in September 2013 and very early promoted to Full Professor in June 2016. In 2018, he left Ohio State University and joined UT Austin as the Accenture Endowed Professor. He also garnered five years of full-time industrial experience at Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio Texas) from 2003 to 2008. Prof. Wang has a wide range of research interests covering control, modeling, estimation, optimization, diagnosis, and AI for dynamical systems, especially automotive, smart and sustainable mobility, robotics, human-centric automation, and cyber-physical system applications.  Prof. Wang’s research program has been funded by National Science Foundation (NSF), Office of Naval Research (ONR), Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Texas Department of Transportation, GM, Ford, Honda, Tenneco, Eaton, MathWorks, Ftech, Denso, and others. Dr. Wang is the author or co-author of more than 405 peer-reviewed publications including 201 journal articles and 13 U.S. patents. He is a recipient of numerous international and national awards including 2024 ASME Charles Stark Draper Innovative Practice Award, 2019 IEEE Best Vehicular Electronics Paper Award, 2018 IEEE Andrew Sage Best Transactions Paper Award, 2017 IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems Outstanding Paper Award, 2012 NSF-CAREER Award, 2011 SAE International Vincent Bendix Automotive Electronics Engineering Award, and 2009 ONR Young Investigator Award. Prof. Wang has been honored as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar, Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, and the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society.  He is an SAE Fellow, ASME Fellow, and IEEE Fellow.