Programs

PhD Program in Systems and Control Engineering


Admission Requirements

Applicants for the SCE Ph.D. from the SCE program are required to have completed the M.S. degree with thesis option and to have a cumulative GPA in the M.S. courses of 3.0 or above. Applicants from other majors are required to have completed an M.S. degree thesis option in an engineering field with close relevance to the systems and control major, and to have a cumulative GPA in the M.S. courses of 3.0 or better. In addition, their course work should contain the equivalence of the SCE M.S. core courses, otherwise remedial courses and/or an entrance exam may be required to be taken and the student must score 'B' or better in each of these courses to be officially admitted into the SCE Ph.D. program.

Degree Requirements

A student in the Ph.D. Program is required to finish a minimum of 30 credit hours (10 courses) plus 12 credit hours of Ph.D. dissertation work. The Ph.D. courses are built on the M.S. courses, and are broadly clustered on the systems theory area and two application-oriented course areas. Courses counted towards the Ph.D. degree are to be taken from the 500/600 level courses other than those taken for the M.S. degree or those taken as a remedial deficiency make-up courses. At least two of these courses should be taken from the 600/700 level courses. A Ph.D. student may complete the ten courses by taking up to two Directed Research courses. A student may also take up to 3 courses in allied areas from outside the program subject to approval by the Department Graduate Committee and provided that at least 2 of them contribute to building a minor.

A student transferred from other universities may transfer up to 12 credit hours of post graduate courses subject to the approval of the Department Graduate Committee, and provided that the student had scored at least B in each course.


Core Course Requirements

It is highly recommended that students complete at least two courses from the SCE 600 level courses scoring a least a grade of 'B' in each one. At least three (3) courses should be chosen from an area of concentration.

Comprehensive Exam

After completing the course work students are required to successfully pass a written comprehensive Ph.D. exam as required by the University Graduate Study regulations. The exam is to be passed, in at most two attempts, by the 4th semester of their admission.

Ph.D. Dissertation

Students are required to present their approved dissertation proposal in public. Students are required to complete a Ph.D. dissertation which must be presented and defended in public according to the requirements of the Deanship of Graduate Studies.

Ph.D. Areas and Courses

In order to prepare the Ph.D. graduates to work in the rapidly developing fields of Systems Science and Automation, the SCE program is structured to offer a wide selection of courses and seminars. Following is a brief description of the various course areas:

A. Systems & Control Theory

The purpose of this set of courses is to provide fundamentals of control and systems theory. This set includes:

  • SCE 612 Advanced Methods for Control Systems
  • SCE 614 Robust Control Systems
  • SCE 616 Nonlinear Filtering
  • SCE 691 Special Topics in Systems & Control
  • SCE 507 Linear Multivariable Control
  • SCE 529 Decentralized Control
  • SCE 513 System Identification
  • SCE 514 Optimal and Robust Control
  • SCE 515 Stochastic Control Systems
  • SCE 516 Linear Estimation
  • SCE 517 Control of Nonlinear Systems
  • SCE 518 Process Modeling and Control SCE
  • 527 Adaptive Control
  • SCE 591 Special Topics in Control Systems Engineering

B. Control Applications and Industrial Automation

The objective of this area is to provide the training and background to handle specific applications which depend on the student’s interests and thesis. Students are required to build an appropriate background in a minor area in which he is expected to achieve a novel interdisciplinary contribution, e.g. (Process control, Geophysics, Petroleum Engineering, Bioinformatics, etc.) The courses include:

  • SCE 630 Distributed Process Control Systems
  • SCE 634 Advanced Techniques in Digital Signal Processing
  • SCE 636 Speech Processing and Recognition
  • SCE 692 Special Topics in Instrumentation and DSP
  • SCE 530 Monitoring and Detection
  • SCE 532 Industrial Automation SCE
  • 534 Digital Signal Processing
  • SCE 535 Distributed Computer Control and Field Buses
  • SCE 540 Intelligent Instrumentation Systems
  • SCE 542 Condition-Based Maintenance
  • SCE 544 Safety-Instrumented Systems
  • SCE 546 Wireless and Internet for Instrumentation & Control
  • SCE 593 Special Topics in Control Applications

C. Automation, Robotics and Machine Intelligence

The objective here is to provide the foundations for study and research in the field of Intelligent Automation Systems. Courses include:

  • SCE 660 Advanced Topics in Intelligent Control
  • SCE 662 Machine Vision and Pattern Recognition in Automation
  • SCE 668 Guided Systems Control
  • SCE 672 Advanced Robotics
  • SCE 694 Special Topics in Intelligent Automation and Robotics
  • SCE 555 Real-Time Computer Systems
  • SCE 556 Microcomputer-based Measurement techniques
  • CSE 560 Soft Computing for Control and Automation
  • SCE 562 Intelligent Systems and Control
  • SCE 571 Robot Dynamics and Control
  • SCE 572 Industrial Robots
  • SCE 574 Advanced Mechatronics
  • SCE 594 Special topics in Robotics and Intelligent Automation
  • SCE 701 Directed Research I
  • SCE 702 Directed Research II