Prof Philip Chen, dean and chair professor of the Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau (UM), recently received the 2017 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems Outstanding Paper Award, for his first-authored paper titled ‘Adaptive Consensus Control for a Class of Nonlinear Multi-agent Time-delay Systems Using Neural Network.’ The paper was selected from 195 papers published in the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems in 2014. The journal publishes technical articles that deal with the theory, design, and applications of neural networks and related learning systems. The award was presented to Prof Chen by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS).

The award aims to recognise excellent achievements in the field of computational intelligence, especially in the area of artificial neural networks. In order to realise consensus control, the paper proposes an approach to adaptively control a class of multi-agent systems using artificial neural networks. The research focuses on the inclusion of time-delay component in nonlinear multi-agent systems which increases the complexity of consensus control, especially when time delays are unknown.

Prof Chen is the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, and IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, a steering committee member of the IEEE Transactions on Big Data, and the vice editor-in-chief of the Communications of Chinese Association of Automation (published by the Chinese Association of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences). He has been a board member of the Chinese Association of Automation since 2011. He was the president of IEEE’s Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (IEEE SMC) during the 2012-2013 period, and now serves as its senior past president in charge of fellows and awards. He was a distinguished lecturer of the IEEE SMC Society from 2010 to 2015.

The IEEE CIS is a worldwide network of researchers, professionals, practitioners, and students who are interested in nature-inspired problem-solving methods. It annually recognises significant contributions and meritorious services in the field of computational intelligence.