Biography and expertise
Dr. Ying-Kuan Tsai is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Ingram School of Engineering at Texas State University. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University, his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from National Taiwan University, and his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. He subsequently served as a Postdoctoral Scholar in Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the integration of engineering design, control, artificial intelligence, and digital twins for the design and operation of intelligent and autonomous engineering systems. His current research interests include control co-design, digital twins, uncertainty-aware learning and optimization, model predictive control, reinforcement learning, surrogate modeling, and design optimization, with applications in advanced manufacturing and autonomous systems.
Education
Doctorate Degree
PhD in Mechanical Engineering
Texas A&M University, 2023
Master's Degree
MS in Mechanical Engineering
National Taiwan University, 2018
Bachelor's Degree
BS in Mechanical Engineering
National Taiwan Univ of Sci Tech, 2016
Teaching Interests
Research Interests
Featured scholarly/creative works
- Tsai, Y.-K., Karkaria, V., Chen, Y.-P., & Chen, W. (2026). Digital twin-enabled multi-generation control co-design with deep reinforcement learning. Journal of Mechanical Design, 148(7), 071705.
- Tsai, Y.-K., & Malak, R. J. (2026). Parametric multi-objective optimization for simultaneous and nested control co-design formulations with tube-based model predictive controllers. Journal of Mechanical Design, 148(11), 111701. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4071654
- Tsai, Y.-K., Chen, Y.-P., Karkaria, V., & Chen, W. (2026). Reinforcement Learning-Based Control Co-Design of Digital Twin-Enabled Full-Vehicle Active Suspension Systems. Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, 69(4), 108.
- Tsai, Y.-K., & Malak, R. J. (2025). Control co-design with performance-robustness trade-off using tube-based stochastic model predictive control. ASME Letters in Dynamic Systems and Control, 5(3), 030903. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4067768
- Chen, Y.-P., Karkaria, V., Tsai, Y.-K., Rolark, F., Quispe, D., Gao, R. X., … Chen, W. (2025). Real-time decision-making for Digital Twin in additive manufacturing with Model Predictive Control using time-series deep neural networks. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 80, 412–424. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2025.03.009
Featured awards
- Award / Honor Recipient: Paper of Distinction, ASME IDETC-CIE (Design Automation Conference, DAC). 2025
- Award / Honor Recipient: Outstanding Paper Award, North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC). 2025
- Award / Honor Recipient: Honorable Mention Award, HIWIN Corporation. 2019
- Award / Honor Recipient: Outstanding Master’s Thesis, The Chinese Society of Mechanism and Machine Theory (Taiwan). 2018
- Award / Honor Recipient: 1st Prize of Creo Parametric Expert Modeling Competition, PTC Inc. 2015
Featured service activities
- Co-Chair
ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC)
- University Mentor
Northwestern University Research Program for High Schoolers (NURPH)
- Reviewer / Referee
ASME Journal of Mechanical Design
- Reviewer / Referee
ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering
- Reviewer / Referee
Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization
- Reviewer / Referee
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence