Qing Zhao, PhD, PEng

Area of Study / Keywords

Control Systems Fault detection Data analytics

About

Qing Zhao received her BSc degree in control engineering from Northeastern University (NEU), Shenyang, P. R. China, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Western Ontario (Currently known as Western University), London, Ontario, Canada, in July 1993 and October 1999, respectively. Since September 2000, she has been with the Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, where she is currently a professor. During her first sabbatical leave from Aug. 2008 to Sept. 2009, Dr. Zhao had visited two institutes in Europe. Awarded an international scholar grant, she had been a visiting professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, from Aug. 2008 to Dec. 2008. She was also awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers in 2009 and had been a visiting professor at Univ. of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany from Jan. to June 2009. While she was on her second sabbatical leave, from Nov. 2019 to Jan. 2020, she had been a visiting professor at NEU, China. She has been a member of IEEE, AIAA, ISA and she is a registered professional engineer in Canada. She has served on several technical and professional committees. She is currently a member-at-large of the Canadian Engineering Qualification Board (CEQB) serving the Syllabus Committee and the Admission Committee; a member of the Board of Examiner for Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), Canada; an international committee member of China Automation Association (CAA) Technical Committee on Fault Diagnosis and Safety of Technical Processes. She was a panel member of the Strategic Grant Selection Panel of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada.

Research

Research Interests:

• Fault detection and diagnosis
• Fault tolerant control
• Robust and optimal control
• Signal processing
• Industrial data analytics
• Machine condition monitoring
• UAV control and estimation

Current Research Projects:

• Controls and monitoring in data-rich environment (PI, NSERC)
• Data analytics and learning based industrial diagnostics and monitoring systems (PI, NSERC and Honeywell)
• Fault detection in networked and distributed systems - UofA “Centre for Autonomous Systems in Strengthening Future Communities” Theme 1 (Co-investigator, Alberta)
• Fault detection and fault tolerant control in power converters - "Towards Future Interconnected Electric System" Theme 2 (Co-investigator, NSERC and APIC)

• New! A PDF position is available on the application of machine learning to industrial process monitoring and diagnostics. Email qingz@ualberta.ca for more information.
• I am currently recruiting MSc and PhD students. Students with strong interests and background knowledge in controls, fault detection, and data analysis are encouraged to contact me.
• I am also recruiting summer (Co-op) students. Highly motivated students with EE or process control backgrounds and good coding skills are encouraged to contact me.

ECE 460 - Control Systems II

Introduction to computer control, sample and hold, discrete-time systems. States and state space models. Linearization of nonlinear state-space models. Solving linear time-invariant state-space equations. Discretization of continuous-time systems. Controllability and observability, and their algebraic tests. Minimal state-space realizations. State feedback and eigenvalue/pole assignment, deadbeat control. Step tracking control design. State estimation and observer design. Observer based control. Introduction to linear quadratic optimal control. Prerequisites: ECE 360 or E E 357, and ECE 340. Credit may be obtained in only one of ECE 460 or E E 460.

ECE 660 - Optimization in Dynamic Control and Estimation

Mathematical preliminaries (probability and linear systems); Conditions of optimality in dynamic systems (minimum principle, HJB equation); Linear quadratic (LQ) control; Minimum-time control; Least-squares estimator; Dynamic estimation; Design of various Kalman filters; Design of linear-quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control. Prerequisites: ECE560 or equivalent.

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