Liang Zhang

Assistant Professor

Electrical and Computer Engineering

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Dr. Liang Zhang is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees from the Center for Intelligent and

Networked Systems (CFINS), Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering – Systems from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, in 2009. Before joining UConn, he was with the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 2009 to 2013. His research interests include mathematical/simulation modeling, analysis, and control of stochastic networked systems with applications to manufacturing and service systems, battery management systems, resiliency in cyber-physical systems, and human-robot collaborative systems. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, General Motors, Johnson Controls, MillerCoors LLC, etc.

Systems Engineering Focus

Key Active Research Projects

• Real-time analysis and control for energy-efficient operations in manufacturing systems
• System-level modeling and analysis of charge equalization in battery systems
• Resilient monitoring and control in cyber-physical systems

Future Directions

• Investigation of rigorous and effective methods for identification and mitigation of attacks (cyber or physical) in cyber-physical systems
• Establish theoretical modeling and analysis framework for implementing cyber-physical systems to manufacturing practice
• Develop models and control methods for effective and efficient management of human-robot collaboration teams for manufacturing and other activities.

Key Skills/Capabilities

• Research Specialties: Stochastic networked systems, manufacturing systems, production control and scheduling, operations research/management, supply chain analysis, discrete-event simulation, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, meta-heuristics optimization.
• Modeling and simulation capabilities using a variety of state-of-the-art platforms:
  • Simul8: Environment for discrete-event system simulations
  • MATLAB and C/C++/C#: Programming languages for programming, data analysis, numerical computation, simulation, and optimization

Google Scholar Profile

Liang Zhang