Quality-targeted Process Optimization and Control 2018 Forum
A timely snow promises a good harvest. On December 8, 2018, Hangzhou ushered in the first heavy snow this year. Quality-targeted Process Optimization and Control 2018 Forum was held in Room 101, Building No. 9, Yuquan campus, Zhejiang University. This conference is co-sponsored by the National Center for International Research Quality Process Optimization and Control (QPOC), College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University. Focusing on the frontier and hotspot issues of "quality control and optimization", this conference explored the way of interdisciplinary integration of process/equipment and optimization/control, integration of internationalization and localization, and interaction between industry and university, research and application.More than 30 participants from corporate world, like Sinopec, Hangzhou Hangyang, Zhejiang Annuo Fang amine Chemicals, Wanhua Chemical, Hengyi, Yangtze Petrochemical, Aliyun, Juhua, Nongfu Spring, and more than 20 well-known scholars from Pennsylvania State University, University of Texas at Austin, Queen's University, Zhejiang University and other universities were invited to attend the conference. Meanwhile, more than 30 graduate students from College of Control Science and Engineering and College of Chemical and Biological Engineering of Zhejiang University attended the meeting.The conference began at 8:30 a.m. Professor SHAO Zhijiang, the Dean for College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University and Director, QPOC National Center for International Research, welcomed the guests who participated in this conference. He also gave a speech on "Intelligent Process Production - Towards Quality Control and Optimization", and briefly explained the target vision and technical grading of industrial intelligence. In the era of pursuing high quality and intelligence, the process industry should adhere to an open, cooperative and win-win attitude, take product quality as the guide and enhance the competitiveness of industry through optimization and control.The first part of conference in the morning was presided over by Professor SHAO. Mr. LIAO Ningping, Chief Information Officer of Zhejiang Hengyi Petrochemicals Co., Ltd and Mr. LIU Yuhang, Chief Architect, ET Industrial Brain, Alibaba Cloud Computing Co., Ltd., made an academic report on demands and applications of smart manufacturing in chemical fiber industry. They shared their successful experiences and mentioned the potential problems as well.Professor FENG Lianfang from College of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Professor CHEN Xi from College of Control Science and Engineering introduced the modelling and on-line quality prediction of polymerization process in synthetic rubber solution. They shared the dynamic real-time calculation of MWD and online quality prediction methods. They also mentioned the prospect of closed-loop control framework for polymer micro-quality.The second parts of conference in the morning was presided over by Professor FENG Lianfang. Professor Kim McAuley from Queen's University shared ideas on using historical dynamic data to estimate parameters and mismatch in fundamental models for online applications. By using B-spline, the stochastic differential equation is converted into algebraic equation to simplify the model. After that, Professor SU Hongye from College of Control Science and Engineering and Mr. YI Xiaocheng, General Manager, Center of Big Data, Juhua Group Corporation introduced their work on recent progress and standardization in advanced control and optimization technology of oil refining process. Professor Antonios Armaou from Pennsylvania State University made a report on operation policy and regulator design for materials, chemical and environmental processes. He mentioned the application of model predictive control and model reduction methods.The conference in the afternoon was presided over by Professor CHEN Xi. In the report of high-quality automatic load change system of cryogenic air separation plant, Mr. WANG Kai, the Deputy Dean, Design Institute, for Hangzhou Hangyang Co., Ltd, introduced the overall context of technological development and the architecture of the future intelligent operation of gas industry. Associate Professor XU Zuhua from College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, introduced the technology of automatic load changing, and shared the field application examples in Nanjing Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. Associate Professor Michael Baldea from University of Texas at Austin introduced the new ideas and methods for optimization and control of industrial demands and challenges. He also introduced concept and applications to air separation and chlor-alkali industry. Then, Dr. ZHOU Li, Secretary of the Board, Nongfu Spring Co., Ltd, introduced the HACCP system for quality control of food production processes and its application in quality control of packaged drinking water production. Associate researcher WANG Lijun from College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Associate professor ZHAO Jun from College of Control Science and Engineering, shared some ideas on rigorous modelling and quality control for PX oxidation reaction process.In the following free discussion, the participants from Yangtze Petrochemical, China Huanqiu, Qingdao Wanlong, PCITC, Huadian Electric Power Research Institute discussed the present situation and future development of process production and put forward their opinions on effective and continuous improvement of quality. After the summary of Professor Shao, Quality-targeted Process Optimization and Control 2018 Forum was successfully completed. The report of this conference was wonderful and aroused warm discussions. Meanwhile, guests from the business community and academic community had fully communicated during and after the conference. The participants gained a lot from the forum. The pursuit of quality is the common goal for both the business community and academic community. With combination of mechanism and data, and with the application of optimization and control, the road to intelligence is still long but to a bright future. The combination of internationalization and localization, the close interaction between industry, academia and research, and the multidisciplinary integration will lay an important foundation for building a new mode of research and forming a new peak for technology.Reporter：ZHENG Chenglin, LING ZhengxuanPhoto：YAO Yi, ZHAO Qianqian, GAO Yan, YAN Xiaoting
MORE >Prof. CHEN Jiming elevated as IEEE Fellow
Professor CHEN Jiming of the College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, was elevated as an IEEE Fellow by IEEE Board of Directors, at its November 2018 meeting, effective 1 January 2019, for his "contributions to resource allocation and optimization in wireless sensor networks".CHEN Jiming is a Changjiang Scholars Professor (2015) of College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University. He is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology, Deputy Director of the State Key laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, Director of the Institute of Industrial Process Control. He was a visiting researcher at University of Waterloo from 2008 to 2010. Currently, He serves/served associate editors for ACM TECS, IEEE TPDS, IEEE Network, IEEE TCNS, IEEE TII, etc. He has been appointed as a distinguished lecturer of IEEE vehicular technology society 2015, and selected in National Program for Special Support of Top-Notch Young Professionals, and also funded Excellent Youth Foundation of NSFC. He also was the recipients of IEEE INFOCOME 2014 Best Demo Award, IEEE ICCC 2014 Best Paper Award, IEEE PIMRC 2012 Best Paper Award, and JSPS Visiting Fellowship 2011. He also received the IEEE Comsoc Asia-pacific Outstanding Young Researcher Award 2011. His research interests include networked control, sensor networks, cyber security.
MORE >UIUC Prof. Petros G. Voulgaris delivered a talk for CSE Sci-Tech Innovation Lecture Series
Professor Petros G. Voulgaris from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign visited the College of Control Science & Engineering, Zhejiang University recently. On October 26, 2018 during his visit, he delivered a talk for CSE Sci-Tech Innovation Lecture Series on Sampled Data Control and Security in Cyber-Physical Systems.Cyber-physical systems (CPS) have become ubiquitous in engineering and have extended the range of aerospace applications to several new domains. Aerial robots are typical examples of CPS that can execute cooperative missions of increasing complexity without constant supervision of human operators e.g., forest fire detection, police surveillance, and recovery operations to name a few. Similarly, current and future space applications such as satellite swarms and distributed spacecraft systems, autonomous and aerospace robotic systems, depend critically on the synergy of cyberspace with the physical components.Pertinent to CPS is the notion of security, which is of paramount importance in aerospace, power, transportation, manufacturing, etc. The concept of security to malicious attacks brings an important new dimension in the design CPS. In this talk, Prof. Voulgaris presented some aspects of this problem related to control system security to attacks and provide some ways to enhance detection and awareness. More specifically, he elaborated on this issue from the control analysis, design and actual implementation point of view. Malicious attacks were considered on actuators and sensors of a feedback system which can be modelled as additive, possibly unbounded, disturbances at the digital (cyber) part of the feedback loop. It is shown that the standard sampled data implementation can create additional vulnerabilities to stealthy attacks, and therefore, when security is at stake, it is of paramount importance to have methods to eliminate these vulnerabilities. By devising a multi-rate scheme, it turns out that stealthy attacks are not possible. Further, precise trade-offs can be provided on performance and safety cost. Last but not least, he touched upon other type of attacks and their connections to switching systems and linear programming.Professor Petros G. Voulgaris received the Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University, Athens, Greece, in 1986, and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988 and 1991, respectively. Since 1991, he has been with the Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois where he is currently a Professor (also appointments with the Coordinated Science Laboratory, and the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.) His research interests include optimal, robust and distributed control and estimation; networked control; applications of advanced control methods to engineering practice including, power systems, air-vehicle, nano-scale, robotic, and structural control systems. Dr. Voulgaris is a recipient of several awards including the NSF Research Initiation Award, the ONR Young Investigator Award and the UIUC Xerox Award for research. He has also been a Visiting ADGAS Chair Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2008-10). His research has been supported by several agencies including NSF, ONR, AFOSR, NASA, and Boeing totalling more than $12 million of funded projects. He is also a Fellow of IEEE.
MORE >ZJU-ZMART won world championship of 2018 International Aerial Robotics Competition, Mission 7
On August 27, 2018, assessed by the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) Committee, Zhejiang University team ZMART won the IARC 7th mission world championship with the highest comprehensive score, and won the prize of 20,000 US dollars. Zhejiang University became the seventh world champion of IARC after Stanford University (1995), Carnegie Mellon University (1997), Berlin University of Technology (2000), Georgia Tech (2008), MIT (2009) and Tsinghua University (2013). After the end of MISSION 7, the IARC competition will enter into MISSION 8.The ZMART team of Zhejiang University was established in 2012. The team members are graduate students and undergraduates and they are directed by Dr. XU Chao and Dr. ZHANG Yu from the College of Control Science and Engineering of Zhejiang University. The team participated in the 7th mission in 2014, and showed strong ability in control, navigation, perception and decision-making in the competition. From 2016 to 2018, they won the first place in the competition for three consecutive years.The International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) began in 1991. As of 2018, the event has gone through 28 years and has accomplished seven missions. The competition promotes advances in robotics by setting challenging tasks. 2018 is the fifth year of MISSION 7 "Aerial Shepherd Dog", requiring teams to overcome many technical problems such as control, planning, perception, and obstacle avoidance, making the aerial robot (i.e., the shepherd dog) completely autonomous, and quickly “drive away” ground moving object (flock of sheep) to designated safe areas (sheepfold) while avoiding collisions with moving obstacles (wolves) at different heights. The 7th mission lasted for five years. In addition to Zhejiang University, there were more than 50 universities that participated in the competition including MIT, Pennsylvania University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Purdue University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Xiamen University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Zhongshan University and Indian Institute of Technology.List of Team Members:2018: YE Hongkai (Captain), WANG Zhepei (Group Leader), XIONG Kun, ZHANG Kunyi, DING Ziming, WAN Zeyu2017: WENG Yizhen (Captain), WANG Zhepei (Group Leader), ZHU Jiangcheng, WAN Xudong, ZHU Jun, YE Hongkai, ZHANG Kunyi, GUO Lei, XIONG Kun2016: WANG Hongda (Captain), ZHU Jiangcheng (Group Leader), WENG Yizhen, YE Bo, RU Xiangyu, ZHU Jun, WAN Xudong, CUI Can, QIU Wei, GUO Lei2015: YE Changchun (Captain), ZHU Jiangcheng (Group Leader), WANG Hongda, WENG Yizhen, YE Bo, RU Xiangyu, CUI Can, QIU Wei, HUANG Yongbin2014: QIN Tong (Captain), ZHU Jiangcheng (Group Leader), WENG Yizhen, LOU Changxu, HUANG Xianan, LIU Haoyu, WANG Zhonglei, CHEN Yikuan, YE Changchun, Han Tao
MORE >ZJU “HaoKeYing” Aerial Robotics Team won national championship of 2018 National High-resolution Aerial Robotics Intelligent Sensing Technology Competition
On August 25, 2018, “HaoKeYing” aerial robotics team of Zhejiang University won the national championship in the “2018 National High-resolution Aerial Robotics Intelligent Sensing Technology Competition”.Under the guidance of Dr. ZHANG Yu and Professor LI Ping from the College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, “HaoKeYing” aerial robotics team including ZHENG Yuxin, CHEN Shenzhou, DAI Weichen, LI Jianshu, LIN Yongliang, LI Yang and XU Lihao, made a great performance in simulation and physical competitions. In the competition, they won the first in the total score with obvious advantages.The competition was held in the Gymnasium of Shanghai JiaoTong University. As the most influential competition of intelligent aerial robotic technology in China, the high- resolution aerial robotics intelligent perception technology competition actively promotes the transformation and application of the innovative achievements of intelligent perception technology in the field of aerial robotics. With the development of intelligent perception technology and innovative application based on unmanned platform, the competition attracted nearly 200 people of 38 teams from 22 famous universities and companies.
MORE >CSE students won 1st place in the “Shenzhen Cup” Mathematical Modeling Competition
Hosted by China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and Shenzhen Science and Technology Association, co-organized by Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), the “Shenzhen Cup” Mathematical Modeling Competition was held at SUSTech on August 18th, 2018.The team of Zhejiang University consists of ZHOU Tao, ZHANG Tianhao and LI Zhen and is guided by Prof. HE Shibo (College of Control Science and Engineering) and Prof. SHI Zhiguo (College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering).After three days of presentations and discussions, ZJU team was selected as the best one for the problem B among all teams of famous universities like Tsinghua University and Fudan University.“Shenzhen Cup” Mathematical Modeling Competition was first held in 2011, and embraced its 8th event this year. Over the years it has attracted thousands of students to take part in. The test problems are announced usually in April each year. Teams are required to provide a preliminary report to the problem they choose in about one month, according to which they will be selected by the professional committee to enter the final competition in August. Four problems were published in this year’s competition, and only one best team would be selected as the first place for each problem.
MORE >IEEE CSS President, UCSB Prof. Francesco Bullo visited CSE
On July 31, 2018, invited by Professor CHEN Jiming, the IEEE CSS President, Professor Francesco Bullo from the University of California, Santa Barbara visited the College of Control Science and Engineering (CSE) at Zhejiang University (ZJU).In Room 501 of the CSE New Building, Prof. Bullo gave a talk, named as “On the Dynamics of Opinions and Influence Systems”. This talk presented models for the evolution of opinions, interpersonal influences and social power in a group of individuals. Prof. Bullo first talked about the empirical data and mathematical models for the opinion formation process in deliberative groups, including concepts of self-weight and social power. Especially, He focused on how groups form opinions based on judgment, intelligence, and resource allocation. Then, he showed how the natural dynamical evolution of interpersonal influence structures is shaped by the psychological phenomenon of reflected appraisal. Multi-agent models and analysis results were grounded in influence networks from mathematical sociology, replicator dynamics from evolutionary games, and transactive memory systems from organization science. At the end of the talk, the students actively asked questions and talked with Prof. Bullo on the issues of interest.After the talk, Prof. Chen introduced the development history and current research situation of ZJU-CSE to Prof. Bullo. They also talked over the relevance of security, big data analysis, network systems and distributed control, and discussed the prospects for further cooperation.Francesco Bullo is a Professor from the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests focus on network systems, distributed control and their application in robotic coordination, power grids and social networks. He is the coauthor of “Geometric Control of Mechanical Systems” (Springer, 2004) and “Distributed Control of Robotic Networks” (Princeton, 2009); his latest book “Lectures on Network Systems” (Create Space 2018) is available on his website. He received best paper awards for his work in the journals such as IEEE Control Systems, Automatica, SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, and IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems. He is a Fellow of IEEE and IFAC. He once served in the editorial boards of IEEE, SIAM, and ESAIM journals, and is now serving as IEEE CSS President.
MORE >Again! ZJUNlict won world championship of RoboCup-Small Size League
At 14:48 on June 21, 2018, local time in Canada, Zhejiang University's ZJUNlict team won the world championship, beating the US Carnegie Mellon University team 4-0 in the RoboCup 2018-Small Size League soccer robot finals. The team is under the guidance of Professor XIONG Rong, College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University.
MORE >AZFT IoT Lab established and Prof. CHEN Jiming appointed as the Director
The “AZFT IoT Lab” jointly established by Zhejiang University (ZJU) and Alibaba Group was officially launched at the Alibaba Xixi Park on May 29, 2018. Researchers attending the launching ceremony included Prof. BU Jiajun (Executive Vice President of ZJU College of Software and Deputy Director of Alibaba-ZJU Joint Research Institute of Frontier Technologies), Dr. DING Xianfeng (Aliyun Chief Intelligence Network Scientist), Prof. CHEN Jiming (Deputy Director of ZJU State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology). More than 30 graduate students and professors from ZJU College of Computer Science and Technology, College of Control Science and Engineering, and College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering attended the ceremony. It is said by Prof. Bu that the establishment of IoT Lab would promote the cooperation between Alibaba and ZJU. Dr. Ding introduced Alibaba’s related research foundation and research assumption. He emphasized the mission of IoT was to build up a physical world which is totally digitalized. Alibaba wishes to be not only a producer of ‘cloud’, but also the builder of the whole digital world infrastructure. Alibaba will make efforts to build the information layer of IoT, the computing bridge connecting the physical world with the digital world, and finally build a cyber-physical system with self-situation awareness and self-regulation.Since the Alibaba’s announcement of entering the field of IoT on March 28, IoT has become another main business of Alibaba. The establishment of AZFT IoT Lab is significant to Alibaba and the research on IoT technologies.
MORE >Prof. CHEN Xi's group published a cover article in IECR Journal
Professor CHEN Xi’s research group of the College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University recently published a Supplementary Cover Art article in the TOP Journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research: A Novel Method To Find All Physical Solutions of Constrained Chemical Engineering Models in Polynomial Equations（https://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/57/18） Abstract:Sometimes, there are more than one solutions of a chemical process simulation. In this work, a novel strategy is proposed for finding all physical solutions of chemical engineering models described in polynomials with prescribed variable bounds. First, the Gröbner basis method is proposed to transform the original model into a lower-triangular polynomial system. Based on this triangular structure, the problem of finding solutions of a constrained multivariable polynomial system is converted to solve a set of constrained univariate polynomials sequentially. Next, a real-root-isolation algorithm is developed to compute the disjoint intervals of each univariate polynomial such that each interval contains one solution. Finally, a numerical method with convergence monitoring is proposed to locate each solution. Case studies show that the proposed method can accurately analyze the multisolution features of the systems. All physical solutions can be found directly and effectively.
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