Qing-Guo Wang was born in Suzhou, China. He received his BEng in Chemical Engineering, MEng and PhD both in Industrial Automation from Zhejiang University (ZU), where he was a PRC Postdoctoral Fellow and worked as an Associate Professor. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of the Institute for Intelligent Systems in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). He holds A-rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF). He is a member of Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).
He received the Young Scientist Award of the Chinese Association of Science and Technology in 1990, and He was named as an Outstanding China-conferred PhD by the State Education Committee of PRC in 1991. He held a Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Fellowship of Germany with Me-, Steuer- und Regelungstechnik, FB 7 --- Maschinenbau, Universitt-GH-Duisburg from 1990 to 1991 and with Regelungs- und Systemtheorie, FB 16 --- Elektrotechnik, GH Kassel Universitt from 1991 to 1992. From 1992 to 2015, he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National University of Singapore (NUS), where he became a Full Professor from 2004.
His research interests lie in modeling, estimation, prediction, control, optimization and automation for a wide range of systems including, but not limited to, various industrial and environmental processes, new energy devices/facilities, defense systems, medical engineering, and financial markets. His works cover the cores of Industry 4.0. He has published 330 technical papers in international journals with additional 13 in China journals. He received nearly 18000 citations with h-index of 72 and i10-Index of 224. He was presented with the award of the most cited article of the Journal of Automatica in 2006-2010 and was in the Thomson Reuters list of the highly-cited researchers 2013 in Engineering (1 out of 250 worldwide). He received the prize of the most influential paper of the 30 years of the journal of Control Theory and Applications. He is an internationally renowned researcher in the areas of system modeling and identification, relay feedback systems, auto-tuning of control systems, decoupling control, PID control, time delay systems analysis and control, state estimation, multivariable and robust control. His exceptional publications and citations figures are a clear proof for such statements.
In addition to his world-class academic research, he has rich practical development experience and successful technological transfers to industries. He worked (the majority of time physically) in a paper mill for 3 years during his Master and PhD studies and co-developed (with his supervisor and a classmate) the first-ever paper machine computer control system in PRC which was put to its practical use in industry in 1985. He then participated and promoted its implementation in many paper mills during 1985-1990 before he left China for Germany. This invention/development was given a 2nd-class Technological Progress Award of the State Education Committee of PRC in 1990. The spin-off company from this technology, 浙江双元科技开发有限公司, http://www.zjusy.com/?index.html, has dominated the China market since then. After he came to Singapore in 1992, he developed practical control systems for cleanrooms, furnace, crystallization, oil refinery and power systems. He has collaborated with major control giants such as Siemens for dynamic load dispatch of power plants, Yokogawa for multivariable decoupling control, Fisher-Rosemount/Emerson for PID controller auto-tuning, Honeywell for multivariable control, Aspen Technology for model predictive control, DuPont for real time optimal control, and Supercon Technology for robust process identification. He co-holds five patents in USA and Singapore, two of which have been licensed to USA. His total funding exceeded $20m. His AI project was aired in CNN in Jan 2018. His talk on Industry 4.0 is popular in YouTube. He has demonstrated his strong abilities to bring research results to practical applications. He is a rare researcher who is good in both theory and applications.
He taught courses in Engineering Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, Electronic Circuits, Signals and Systems, Computer Control, Linear Systems, Servo Systems, and Multivariable Control. He supervised two undergraduate projects, one on hand-on developmental work and another on business feasibility study. His final-year projects on financial studies are most popular in his department and always sought after by students. He has supervised about 30 postdoctoral research fellows, more than 30 PhD students and about 30 Master students He got teaching awards almost every year. He is recognized as a passionate and effective teacher.
For his professional services, he is currently the deputy Editor-in-Chief of the ISA Transactions (USA), he was an Associate Editor of Journal of Process Control (an IFAC journal), Jan. 2002-Dec. 2004, and he is currently on editorial boards of a few other journals.
