Department of Control Science and Engineering

Introduction

The Department of Control Science and Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) was founded in 1973 with its original name as “The Department of Automatic Control”. In the year of 1998, it was renamed as “The Department of Control Science and Engineering”.

Control Science and Engineering is a comprehensive multi-discipline specialized subject with distinct characteristics that comprises "Science, Engineering, Literature, and Management". The department was granted the right to award doctorate in the discipline of Control Science and Engineering in 1997. The department has four sub-disciplines of Engineering: Control Theory and Control Engineering, Measuring Technology and Automatic Devices, Systems Engineering, and Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Systems and one sub-discipline of Science: Systems Analysis and Integration. It also offers Postdoctoral Degree based on the post-doctoral research center of Control Theory and Control Engineering. In 2006, from the overall level evaluation of the national key disciplines (disciplinary evaluation in brief) by the Ministry of Education, the department ranked the fifth nationwide. In 2007, control science and engineering is evaluated as one of the national key disciplines. The department offers three Bachelor Degrees of Automation, Detecting, and Control Technology and Instrument, Logistics System Engineering; Master of Engineering Education involves three areas of Control Engineering, Logistics Engineering and Project Management. Many prestigious national and international research labs and centers are instituted in the Department including the Key Laboratory for Image Processing & Intelligent Control of the Ministry of Education, National Simulation Training Center for National Economy Mobilization and the Wuhan City RFID Productivity Promotion Center. The department has 102 staff, of whom, there are 33 professors and 28 associate professors. The department has more than 2,000 students. Every year, the department has an enrollment of approximately 380 undergraduates, 150 postgraduates and more than 50 doctors.

Scientific Research

The research of the department is mainly related to the following directions: Control Theory of Complex System, Decision Analysis and Decision Support, Power Electronics and Motion Control, Intelligent Control and Intelligent Robotics, Vision-Based Measurement and Control, Computer Integrated Control and Network Technology, Information Detection and Identification, Biological Information Processing, Micro-System Detection and Control, Logistics Automation and Logistics Information System, Mobilization of the National Economy and Public Safety, and Aero craft Control and Condition Monitoring.

The department has seven research institutes and one research center: the Institute of Intelligence and Control Engineering, the Institute of Automation, the Institute of Control and Information Technology, the Institute of Measure and Control Technologies and System Analysis, the Institute of System Engineering, the Institute of Control Theory, the Institute of Systems Science and the Nonlinear and Complex Systems Research Center. The faculty will focus on the research that is creative, innovative, and meaningful in the future.

Discipline Bases

There are 3 main discipline bases in the department. They are the Image Information Processing and Intelligent Control Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, the National Simulation Training Center for National Economy Mobilization and the Wuhan RFID Productivity Accelerating Center.

Experiment Base

The department has built a high level comprehensive control related experiment and innovation platform, under which there are four sub-platforms: the Control Theory and Control Technology, the Motion Control Technology, the PC based Control and Logistics Automation System, and together they four provide the hardware support for increasing creative and comprehensive Experiments to appear. The department has the country's first-class laboratories of experimental teaching conditions and the ability to create demonstrative, designed and comprehensive multi-level experiment for undergraduates. Furthermore, with those labs, our students are exposed to an unmatched breadth and depth of expertise.

Elite Cultivation

The department’s education idea is “educate broadly, solidify foundation, create environments and value innovation." Based on the background of Control Theory, it creates distinctive characteristics of combining control science with management, emphasizing on both strong and feebleness electricity, and applying both hardware and software. The department is extraordinarily concerned about the basic knowledge learned by the students with an emphasis on skills that enable them to adapt to the regular paradigm shifts in the technological and engineering landscapes. And these concerns together with the specialized courses make the students have great development potential with exciting careers when they enter the society. In recent years, the department’s students gain good grades in the national university academic competitions.