Dr İbrahim Beklan Küçükdemiral is a Reader in the Department of Engineering at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU). He received his BSc (1997, 1st class), MSc (1999, distinction), and PhD (2002) in Electrical Engineering from Yıldız Technical University (YTU) in Istanbul. In 2010, following an independent jury evaluation and viva voce, he was awarded the title of Associate Professor (Docent) by the Council of Higher Education, Türkiye in the area of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. At GCU, he is the Founder and Leader of the Robotics for Common Good research group and served as the Chair of the GCU Engineering Industrial Advisory Board.

Research Leadership & Impact

Dr Küçükdemiral’s research sits at the intersection of optimisation, computational control, artificial intelligence, and decision-making for complex engineered systems.  His core expertise lies in computational robust and optimal control, with an emphasis on Model Predictive Control (MPC) and data-driven methodologies, including Data-Driven Predictive Control and GenAI-assisted optimisation. 

His work develops safety-critical, cyber-resilient, and performance-guaranteed control frameworks.  He applies these techniques across a broad spectrum of real-world challenges, ranging from robotics and autonomous vehicles (including UAVs, ground, and underwater vehicles) to renewable energy systems and biomedical control applications, such as mathematical modelling for cancer therapies.

He has secured and delivered competitive research funding, serving as the Co-Principal Investigator for the EPSRC-funded ROBMAN project (Robust Robotic Manipulation Underwater) and leading multiple grants and industrial R&D projects funded by TÜBİTAK and industry partners. 

International Professional Standing

A Senior Member of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and member of International Federation of IFAC, Dr Küçükdemiral serves as the Chair of the IEEE UK & Ireland Control Systems Chapter and previously served as a member of the IEEE Region 8 Conference Coordination Committee.  He is currently a member of the IEEE Region 8 Ad Hoc Committee on Flagship and Portfolio Conferences.

Ibrahim is an Editor for Results in Engineering (Elsevier, Q1) and serves on the editorial boards of Ocean Engineering (Elsevier, Q1) and the Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences.  Within the IFAC, he serves on multiple Technical Committees and has acted as an Editor for major symposiums, including IFAC SSSC and the Workshop on Time Delay Systems (TDS).  He also served as the Publication Chair for the flagship 8th IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications.  Furthermore, he has acted as an expert reviewer, panellist, and evaluator for over 50 international projects, including the Japan–UK Joint Call for Collaborations in Advancing Human-Centred AI (EPSRC-JST), EUREKA Eurostars (Horizon Europe), the Denmark Innovation Fund, the MissionGreenFuels Partnership (Denmark), and TÜBİTAK.

At a national level, he is a member of the EPSRC Peer Review College, the United Kingdom Automatic Control Council (UKACC), and the Engineering Professors’ Council.  He represents GCU on the Thematic Leadership Group for Robotics & Autonomous Systems within the Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (SRPe).

Teaching Excellence & Academic Governance

With a teaching portfolio spanning the UK, Türkiye (Yıldız Technical University and Turkish Air Force Academy), the American University of Sharjah, Mauritius, and China, Dr Küçükdemiral has designed and delivered modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. These include Control Systems, Model Predictive Control, Signals and Systems, Logic Circuits and Design, Microprocessors and their Industrial Applications, Control and Instrumentation Systems, Discrete Mathematics, Numerical Analysis, Optimal Control, System Theory, Adaptive Control, Robot Modelling and Control, Digital Flight Control Systems (Turkish Air Force Academy), and Computer-Aided Design of Flight Electronics (Turkish Air Force Academy).

He has directed five PhD candidates to successful completion.  He currently serves as an External Examiner for the BEng/MEng Robotics & Automation programme at Leeds Beckett University and the BEng/MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering programme at Coventry University (INTI Penang, Malaysia), and previously held the role of External Examiner at the University of Bradford International College.

Prior to joining GCU in 2017, Dr Küçükdemiral spent nearly two decades at Yıldız Technical University (YTU) in Istanbul—one of Türkiye’s oldest and top-ranked research universities. There, he progressed from Research Assistant (1998) to Full Professor (2015) and played an instrumental, leading role in founding the Department of Control & Automation Engineering within the Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering.