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 170 publications in these areas, including more than 90 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.