James Taylor holds a Personal Chair in Control Engineering. He is Impact Champion for the School of Engineering and lead for Robotics & Control. He was group lead for Nuclear Science & Engineering (2019-24), Deputy Head of Engineering (2015-2018), and Director of Undergraduate/Postgraduate Studies (2005-2014). His research focuses on data-driven modelling and automatic control, applied to challenging, uncertain systems across robotics, energy, health, agriculture and the environment.
Professor Taylor is Co-investigator for Autonomous Inspection for Responsive and Sustainable Nuclear Fuel Manufacture (EP/V051059), Advancing Location Accuracy via Collimated Nuclear Assay for Decommissioning Robotic Applications (EP/V026941/1) and Novel High Performance Wave Energy Converters (EP/V040561/1). He has been Principal investigator for 10+ industry funded projects, with a focus on mobile robotic systems for remote handling and nuclear decommissioning. He was lead at Lancaster for the National Centre for Nuclear Robotics (EP/R02572X/1) and Adaptive Treatment and Robust Control (EP/M015637/1). He was Co-investigator for Technology Development to Evaluate Dose Rate Distribution (EP/N017749/1) and Developing an Automated Microphenotyping Platform to Unlock the Potential of Chemical Biology in Plants (BB/M004260/1). Earlier in his career, he was Principal investigator for Control of Nonlinear Systems Identified using Scheduled, Adaptive and State Dependent Parameter Models (GR/R94442/01).
He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET), sits on the Academic Accreditation Committee, and is a past chair for the Control & Automation Network. He is external examiner at the University of Southampton (MSc Systems, Comms), and has previously held program examiner roles at Bath University (MEng Integrated Mechanical & Electrical Engineering), Coventry University (MSc Systems, Control) and Loughborough University (BEng/MEng EEE). He sits on the Editorial Boards for three Elsevier Journals, Environmental Modelling & Software, Biosystems Engineering and Progress in Nuclear Energy. He is a member of the UK Automatic Control Council (UKACC) Exec.
He is the author of over 200 peer reviewed Journal and International Conference articles. His co-authored book on True Digital Control: Statistical Modelling and Non-Minimal State Space Design was published by Wiley. He co-develops the CAPTAIN Toolbox (MATLAB) for system identification, time series analysis, forecasting and control.
Professor Taylor arrived at Lancaster University as an undergraduate student of Biological Sciences in 1989, but graduated with BSc (Hons) (1992) and PhD (1996) degrees in Environmental Science, the latter in the area of control system design, supervised by Professor Peter Young and Dr Arun Chotai. He was Research Associate in Environmental Science for six years, before his appointment to an academic position in the Engineering Department, now School, in 2000.
Professor Taylor's personal web page has more information.
