Professor Wasif Naeem is a Professor of Autonomous Systems and Robotics in the Centre for Energy, Power and Intelligent Control (EPIC), within the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).

He earned his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan, in 1998. Following a period working as an R&D engineer, he pursued an MSc in Electrical Engineering on a full scholarship at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia.

In 2001, Professor Naeem was awarded the prestigious EPSRC studentship to undertake a PhD in Mechanical and Marine Engineering at the University of Plymouth, UK. His doctoral research focused on the development of an autonomous underwater vehicle, in collaboration with Cranfield University, QinetiQ, Subsea7, and South West Water plc. His postdoctoral work, also funded by EPSRC, involved developing guidance and control strategies for uncrewed surface vehicles.

Professor Naeem’s research interests include improving the autonomy of uninhabited vehicles, optimal and robust control, system identification, multi-vehicle formation control, and systems engineering. He has served as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on EPSRC, Innovate UK, and UKRI Strength in Places Fund projects, particularly in the area of collision avoidance for marine craft. He has also coordinated Erasmus+ and British Council grants, and contributed to a European Commission-funded project as a co-investigator.

He has authored over 110 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, along with three IET book chapters. His work has received multiple accolades, including the Michael Richey Medal (2008) and the Denny Medal (2010) for journal papers in marine navigation and control, awarded by the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) and the Institution of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST), respectively. A paper on formation control algorithms for unmanned vehicles was shortlisted for Best Paper at the UKACC Control Conference in 2012.

Professor Naeem is a member of the EPSRC Peer Review College, the IFAC Technical Committee on Marine Systems, and serves on prioritisation panels for the Research Council of Norway.

He has held key leadership roles in international conferences, including:

• General Chair of the 29th Irish Signals and Systems Conference,
• Local Organising Chair of the 11th UKACC International Control Conference,
• Co-Chair of the 5th IFAC Conference on Intelligent Control and Automation Sciences,

all hosted in Belfast. He continues to serve on the committees of several international conferences.

I have extensive expertise in the development of uncrewed vehicles, with a particular focus on the maritime domain. My current research encompasses the design of formation control systems for land-based, aerial, and marine vehicles. I am also actively exploring cooperative control strategies for dual-arm robotic systems, such as humanoids.

In addition, I am engaged in the development of advanced navigation systems for uninhabited vehicles. This includes work on obstacle detection and avoidance, as well as simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) technologies.