Professor James Taylor PhD, FIET

Professor of Control Engineering

Profile

Professor James Taylor, Impact Champion for the School of Engineering and lead for Robotics & Control, advances research that turns noisy data into predictive models and robust controllers for energy, health, robotics and the environment. He previously led the Nuclear Science & Engineering research group (2019-2024) and served as Director of Teaching or Deputy Head of Engineering (2005-2018).

Across his career, he has been co-investigator on a portfolio of UK research council grants totalling more than £15 million, covering work such as responsive manufacturing (EP/V051059), decommissioning robotics (EP/V026941/1), wave-energy conversion (EP/V040561/1) and adaptive medical treatment (EP/M015637/1).

He co-develops the CAPTAIN Toolbox (MATLAB), a globally used suite for system identification, time series analysis, forecasting and control. An IET Fellow, he sits on the IET Academic Accreditation Committee, the UK Automatic Control Council executive, and the editorial boards of several Elsevier journals.

A Lancaster alumnus (BSc 1992, PhD 1996 in Environmental Science), Professor Taylor began as a research associate in the Lancaster Environment Centre before moving to Engineering in 2000.

Professor Taylor's personal web page has more information.

He welcomes PhD candidates eager to apply data driven modelling and automatic control to real world, uncertain systems.

Selected Publications

A responsive integrated dry route for uranium hexafluoride conversion using machine intelligence
Bandala, M., Chard, P., Cockbain, N., Dunphy, D., Eaves, D., Hutchinson, D., Lee, D., Leech, G., Ma, X., Marshall, S., Murray, P., Parker, A., Stirzaker, P., Taylor, C.J., Zabalza, J., Joyce, M.J. 31/10/2025 In: Energy Conversion and Management: X. 28
Journal article

Data-Driven Insights: Boosting Algorithms to Uncover Electricity Theft Patterns in AMI
Khan, I.U., Ali, A., Taylor, C.J., Ma, X. 2025 In: IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. 74, p. 1-12. 12 p.
Journal article

Hyperspectral imaging suggests potential for rapid quantification of fission products in spent nuclear fuel
Dunphy, R.D., Parker, A.J., Bandala, M., Bennet, S., Boxall, C., Chard, P., Cockbain, N., Eaves, D., Goddard, D., Ma, X., Taylor, C.J., Wilbraham, R., Zabalza, J., Murray, P., Joyce, M.J. 13/02/2025 In: Scientific Reports. 15, 1
Journal article

Digital twin challenges and opportunities for nuclear fuel manufacturing applications
Bandala Sanchez, M., Chard, P., Cockbain, N., Dunphy, D., Eaves, D., Hutchinson, D., Lee, D., Ma, X., Marshall, S., Murray, P., Parker, A., Stirzaker, P., Taylor, C.J., Zabalza, J., Joyce, M. 15/04/2024
Review article

Robust Data Driven Analysis for Electricity Theft Attack-Resilient Power Grid
Khan, I.U., Javaid, N., Taylor, C.J., Ma, X. 31/01/2023 In: IEEE Transactions on Power Systems. 38, 1, p. 537-548. 12 p.
Journal article

Adaptive treatment and robust control
Clairon, Q., Henderson, R., Young, N., Wilson, E., Taylor, C.J. 30/03/2021 In: Biometrics. 77, 1, p. 223-236. 14 p.
Journal article

True digital control: statistical modelling and non–minimal state space design
Taylor, C.J., Young, P., Chotai, A. 08/2013 Chichester : John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 360 p. ISBN: 978-1-118-52121-2. Electronic ISBN: 978-1-118-53551-6.
Book

Robust and adaptive anticoagulant control
Avery, P., Clairon, Q., Henderson, R., Taylor, C.J., Wilson, E. 1/06/2020 In: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C (Applied Statistics). 69, 3, p. 503-524. 22 p.
Journal article

Dealing with observational data in control
Wilson, E.D., Clairon, Q., Henderson, R., Taylor, C.J. 2018 In: Annual Reviews in Control. 46, p. 94-106. 13 p.
Journal article

State-dependent control of a hydraulically-actuated nuclear decommissioning robot
Taylor, C.J., Robertson, D. 12/2013 In: Control Engineering Practice. 21, 12, p. 1716-1725. 10 p.
Journal article

The Microphenotron: a robotic miniaturized plant phenotyping platform with diverse applications in chemical biology
Burrell, T.I., Fozard, S., Holroyd, G.H., French, A.P., Pound, M.P., Bigley, C., Taylor, C.J., Forde, B.G. 1/03/2017 In: Plant Methods. 13, 20 p.
Journal article

Development of a grow-cell test facility for research into sustainable controlled-environment agriculture
Tsitsimpelis, I., Wolfenden, I., Taylor, C.J. 10/2016 In: Biosystems Engineering. 150, p. 40-53. 14 p.
Journal article

James Kennedy

James Kennedy

PhD student

  • AIRS-NFM
  • Doctorate Centre in Nuclear Engineering
  • DSI - Foundations
  • Energy Lancaster
  • Lancaster Intelligent, Robotic and Autonomous Systems Centre
  • LIRA - Environmental Modelling
  • LIRA - Extreme Environments
  • LIRA - Fundamentals
  • Robotics and Control
  • TALOS