Dr Hong Zhang
Dr Hong Zhang
NSERC/iCORE/Syncrude/Matrikon Industrial Research Chair
Intelligent Sensing Systems
Dr Hong Zhang received an iCORE Industrial Chair ($750K). He also
receives funds from NSERC ($1.06M), matching funding from his
industrial partner Syncrude ($520K) and University funding ($40K). He
receives an annual contribution to an NSERC IPS of $8.6K.
Research Program Overview
A key factor in the oil sands mining process is the size of oil sand as
it progresses through pipeline. The accurate measurement of the size of
oil sand fragments, real-time monitoring of mining equipment, and
analytical modeling of mining activities are major challenges currently
facing the industry.
Dr Zhang’s research focuses on applying leading edge image analysis
techniques and technologies to optimize oil sands mining operations.
Effective solutions to oil sands mining issues will allow the industry
to characterize the performance of material sizing equipment and
optimize production by reducing rejects, increasing throughput, and
lessening the environment impact of oil sand mining.
Developing effective models of oil sands ore and mining processes will
allow the oil sands industry to optimize production by reducing
rejects, optimizing equipment, increasing throughput, and lessening
environmental impact.
Dr Zhang’s research interests lie in developing leading edge sensor
processing algorithms for ore size measurement under variable
environmental conditions and developing statistical models of the oil
sands mining system.
His research activity focuses on developing image processing
algorithms/systems for the analysis of ore size at the ‘crusher’,
‘conveyor’, and ‘rejects-processing’ junctions of the oil sands mining
process. Testing and porting the new technologies developed for the end
user is also a focus of the research team at the, conducted at the
Centre for Intelligent Mining Systems (CIMS) at the University of
Alberta.
Biographical Information
Dr Hong Zhang is a tenured full professor in the Department of
Computing Science in the Faculty of Science at the University of
Alberta, and the Director of CIMS. His research includes significant
work in robotics and its applications, as well the development of
intelligent sensing systems. He has published extensively on robotics
and machine sensing, and served as the program chair of major
international conferences in the area. He currently chairs the
technical committee on Robotics and Manufacturing Automation of the
IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society, and is an associate
editor of the IEEE Transactions on SMC. He has also served as the
Program Chair of the 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Robotics
and Intelligent Systems.
Related Links
Dr Hong Zang’s Homepage
Dr Hong Zhang’s second Homepage
NSERC
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