The 2026 IEEE 15th Data Driven Control and Learning Systems Conference (DDCLS’26) will be held in Jishou, Hunan Province, China, on May 8-11, 2026, jointly organized by Qingdao University and Technical Committee on Data Driven Control System, Asian Control Association, sponsored by IEEE Beijing Section, locally organized by Jishou University, and Hunan University of Science and Technology.

The DDCLS conference has been successfully held for 14 years. Through meticulous preparation and collaborative efforts by the organizing committee and host institutions, the conference has established itself as a premier academic platform by wonderful invited presentations, diverse formats, fruitful research results, and in-depth academic exchanges. This event not only provides a high-level international forum for academic and technologists worldwide but also pioneers new research frontiers in data-driven control, learning, and optimization, significantly elevating China's scientific capabilities in this field. DDCLS has already been issued as the Top Academic Conferences by Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST) in 2022. Looking ahead, the DDCLS’26 will further advance its frontier positioning, scale, and globalization. Its successful convening is poised to catalyze breakthroughs in data-driven control, learning, automation and optimization. while substantially enhancing the field's international academic influence.

The conference is held in Jishou City, located in the western part of Hunan Province. As the capital of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, it sits in the heart of the Wuling Mountain Range and is renowned as the "Mysterious Xiangxi". Recognized as a national forest city, Jiushou boasts an array of scenic and cultural treasures: the romantic Phoenix Ancient Town, the waterfall-clad Furonɡ Town, the mysterious Dehang Grand Canyon, the spectacular Aizhai Bridge, and the vibrant Qianzhou Ancient City. With profound cultural heritage, Jiushou is one of the prototype sites of Shen Congwen's novel The Border Town and has been artistically enriched by the master Huang Yongyu, seamlessly integrating natural landscapes with humanistic artistry.

The English papers accepted by our previous DDCLS conferences had been included in the IEEE Xplore, and indexed by EI Compendex or ISTP database. The DDCLS’26 will cover both theory and applications in all the areas of data driven control and learning systems.

The topics of interest include, but not limited to:
-- Data-driven control theory, approaches, and applications
-- Model-free adaptive control theory and applications
-- Active disturbance rejection control and applications
-- Data-driven fault diagnosis, health maintenance and performance evaluation
-- Iterative learning identification, iterative learning control (repetitive control)
-- Data-driven modeling, optimization, scheduling, decision and simulation
-- Statistical learning, data mining and practical applications in automation field
-- Neural networks, fuzzy systems control methods in data driven manner
-- Reinforcement learning control, ADP based learning control and learning based control
-- Robustness of data-driven control
-- Relationships between data-driven and model-based control methods
-- Applications of data-driven methods in industrial processes
-- Data-driven modeling, control, and optimization for complex systems
-- Data-driven control for practical complex processes
-- Technologies and applications of complex big-data systems
-- Big data in industrial processes, and applications in modeling and control
-- Complex systems and artificial intelligence