Professor Wuqiang Yang is the world-leading authority in electrical capacitance tomography (ECT), which he has taken from early laboratory feasibility studies in the 1990s to currently established commercial technology. He has had extraordinary impact on industry and on the academic community. Based on his ECT research, Schlumberger developed a new type of gas/oil/water flowmeter, Shell developed a new type of supersonic wet gas separator, AstraZeneca optimised pharmaceutical manufacturing by improved understanding of the processes, GEA optimised pharmaceutical fluidised bed designs, Rolls Royce optimised aero engines, and Airbus optimised the A380 fuel supply system. He designed a novel AC-based ECT system with performance superior to any other ECT systems. In image reconstruction, he invented a novel Landweber iterative algorithm for ECT, which enables quantitative measurement. This algorithm is now commonly used not only by researchers working on ECT, but also in all commercial ECT systems and in other tomography modalities. The AC-based ECT systems, he developed, are being used by more than 20 companies, research institutions and universities worldwide.

He has been very heavily involved in the implementation of ECT technology to enable in-depth penetration of a wide range of challenging problems in industry with strong and lasting impact. In the oil and gas industry, he enabled the indepth understanding and optimisation of the new supersonic wet gas separator TWISTER that is now implemented in production by several multi-national companies, and his work with Schlumberger resulted in a new type of gas/oil/water flowmeter, which has 30% of world market. In the pharmaceutical sector, he developed techniques with AstraZeneca and GEA to optimise the operation of pharmaceutical fluidised beds by visualisation of the underlying processes, enabling guaranteed product quality. In aviation, his ECT system has been installed in the Rolls-Royce test facility in Derby to optimise aero-engine design and reliability by validating the flow of lubrication oil, and has been used by Airbus to resolve issues of fuel supply in the A380 aircraft. His work with the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has achieved a major step forward in environmental sustainability of coal combustion by enabling the design optimisation of circulating fluidised bed combustors, which are now operating at large-scale in China. His work with Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics on high-temperature ECT of gas/solids two-phase flows near 1,000ºC in methanol-toolefin conversion opened a new way for massive production of light olefins using non-oil feedstocks, hence contributing to sustainable and environmentally compatible development of the chemical industry. He has extended his work on multi-sensor capacitive measurement technology to enable high-sensitivity touch sensing for healthcare and for robotic systems. His recent work with Beijing Tashan Technology Co. Ltd has resulted in massive production of intelligent sensing units for cars. His academic impact is indicated by his more than 400 papers published on highly rated journals or presented at international conferences. According to Google Scholar, his papers have been cited 11,921 times.

BEng, MSc, PhD (Tsinghua University), FIEEE, FIET, FInstMC, CEng

Professional membership

• Fellow of IEEE
• Fellow of IET
• Fellow of InstMC
• Chartered Engineer

Panel member

• Royal Academy of Engineering Green Future Fellowship
• Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship
• Natural Science Foundation of China
• Ministry of Science and Technology (China)
• Chinese Academy of Sciences

• Electrical capacitance tomography, including hardware design, image reconstruction algorithms and industrial applications
• Multiphase flow measurement, including gas/oil/water flows and pharmaceutical fluidised beds
• Sensors and instrumentation, including touch sensors for robots

His research achievements are summarised as follows.

[1] In ECT instrument, he invented and built the world-leading ECT system, based on a novel stray-immune AC-based capacitance measuring circuit, which won the 2000 IEE Ayrton Premium. The system can measure capacitance change down to 0.01 fF, yields 73 dB signal-to-noise ratio, and provides images at rates up to 300 frames/second, enabling real-time imaging of industrial processes. Many researchers around the world have adopted this design, e.g. TU Lodz (Poland), Tianjin Univ. (China), Ohio State Univ. (USA) and Industrial Tomography Systems plc (UK). His early work on ECT was recognised by the 1997 IEE/NPL Wheatstone Measurement Prize, and 1997 InstMC Honeywell Prize. The AC-based ECT systems are being used by many companies, research institutions and universities in the UK, USA, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and China. In 2012, he was elevated to Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to ECT.

[2] In image reconstruction, he enabled the first quantitative image reconstruction from ECT measurement. In particular, he invented a novel algorithm based on the Landweber iterative technique that is used not only by all researchers working on ECT, but also in all commercial ECT systems and in other tomography modalities. Another of his papers on image reconstruction has been cited 1420 times

[3] Impact on the oil and gas industry. His work with Royal Dutch/Shell and Stork Engineering (Amsterdam) on ECT imaging of liquid droplet distribution in wet gas flows resulted in the state-of-the-art TWISTER supersonic wet gas separator. TWISTER has been installed both sub-sea and on surface plant by Shell, Exxon Mobil, Petronas, and Samsung Heavy Industries, each installation generating savings of up to US$50 million/annum. He worked with Schlumberger Cambridge Research to gain insights into the spatial and temporal distributions of gas/oil/water multiphase flows in pipelines, and develop new advanced industrial multiphase flow meter (MPFM) products. From his collaboration work with Schlumberger, several related patents on the multiphase flowmeters and the methods have been filed by and granted to Schlumberger. With Schlumberger Singapore (SLB) his work resulted in a new type of non-radioactive gas/oil/water flowmeter based on rapid multiple complex dielectric measurements similar to ECT. Schlumberger MPFM market share is around 300 units per year, which is 30% of the world market (up to 500k USD per unit and about 1000 units per year).

[4] Impact on the pharmaceutical industry. He worked with AstraZeneca in Macclesfield and in Sweden, and GEA in Southampton and optimised pharmaceutical drying, granulation and coating processes. His contribution to visualisation and measurement of pharmaceutical processes resulted in new designs of pharmaceutical fluidised beds that are more efficient, and more importantly, guarantee product quality. This work was recognised by 2009 IET Innovation Award Finalist and 2021 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society Best Application Award. This work resulted in an invitation from the International Fine Particle Research Institute (IFPRI) to write a Guidance document for its members.

[5] Impact on the aerospace industry. With Rolls-Royce (UK) in Derby his work resulted installation of his AC-based ECT system to optimise aero-engine design, in particular for the lubrication oil circulation system, thus ensuring reliability. His work with Airbus (UK) in Bristol solved air/fuel ratio and icing problems and optimised the A380 aircraft fuel supply system. His AC-based ECT system was also used by NASA (USA) for multiphase flow measurement under zero gravity.

[6] Impact on the energy industry. Coal is still a major source of energy at a global level. His ECT work with the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics (Chinese Academy of Sciences) helped researchers achieve clean coal combustion in circulating fluidised bed (CFB) combustors, through deeper understanding of the fluidisation processes, validation of simulations and design optimisation. This work resulted in commercialisation of CFB designs of different power capacity, from 50 MW to 600 MW, with typical licence fee of 12 million USD. An example plant is the world’s largest CFB boiler (660 MW) in Baima City, Sichuan Province.

[7] Impact on the chemical industry. As a Visiting Senior Research Fellow, he worked with a team at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (China) to establish world’s first high-temperature ECT for online monitoring of a methanol-to-olefins (MTO) fluidized reactors, with gas/solids two-phase flows near 1000ºC. This work resulted in the successful scale-up of a new type of reactor and thus commercialization of the new generation of MTO (DMTO-III) technology, which has been licensed to eight plants (such as Ningxia Baofeng, National Energy Baotou, National Energy Yinchuan and Shangdong Energy Rongxin). Licensing fees are 76 million USD, and the total investment is about 16 billion USD. This work opened a new way for massive production of light olefins using non-oil feedstocks, hence contributing to sustainable and environmentally compatible development of the chemical industry.

[8] Impact on robotics and cars. In 2019, he established the Joint Research Laboratory of Touch Sensors for Domestic Robots, with Beijing Tashan Technology Co. Ltd, targeting elderly care. This lab has attracted over 1.4 million pounds investment from SBCVC (i.e. Soft Bank China Venture Capital) - a global leading venture capital firm. As Director of the Laboratory, he has played an important role in developing (a) a novel type of capacitive tactile sensors, which can measure 3D touch forces, and (b) a new chip with capacitance-to-digital converter (CDC), multiplexer, ARM microcontroller and router. The sensors and chips have been integrated into robotic systems. In addition to elderly care, this system has been mass-produced for the car manufacturing industry, e.g. BYD.

[9] His academic impact is indicated by his more than 400 papers published in highly rated journals (such as IEEE Transactions), or presented at international conferences (mostly IEEE), 11,921 citations and 53 h-index according to Google Scholar (as of 10 June 2024). He has been heavily engaged in extensive international activities, due to the high esteem, in which he is held by the global communities working on forefront systems for sensors, instrumentation and tomography. He was appointed as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (DL) on ECT during 2010-2016 and has been appointed IEEE DL again on capacitive tactile sensors for robots for 2025-2027. He was a JSPS Invitation Fellow (2016) and JSPS Bridge Fellow (2022) at Chiba University (Japan). His profile has been included in Who’s Who in the World since 2007.

Possible PhD projects

(1) Capacitive tactile sensors and tomography with robots

Robots have been becoming popular in recent years. A robot gripper usually has two or three fingers. It is possible to mount a few electrodes on each finger to form an ECT sensor. The challenges are how to design the electrodes to be mounted on robot fingers, how to deal with different size (e.g. diameter), different shape and different material of object. The aim of this work is to develop such a robot ECT system, so that once a robot gripper grabs an object, the ECT sensor can identify the material property and to tell the material inside. This technique may be used for liquid screening in airports.

(2) Machine learning for post processing of ECT data

An ECT system can capture capacitance data at 100 frames per second. While big data can be generated by ECT, techniques for post data processing, such as image reconstruction, are limited and time-consuming. The aim of this project is to explore machine learning for post data processing of ECT data. The first target is to implement real-time flow regime identification by making use of machine learning. Capacitance data from an ECT system with flow regime known are used to train a neural network. Once this training process has been completed, flow regime can be derived in real time from a set of capacitance data, which are obtained from an ECT system. This flow regime identifier can help improve measurement accuracy of all existing multiphase flow meters. 

(3) Low-cost ECT device

We have been leading in ECT. The AC-based ECT system, we developed, has the highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (>73 dB), and can generate images at a speed of >100 frames per second. Because of the market demanding, we intend to develop a new low-cost ECT device, based on capacitance-to-digital converters (CDC) and a type of microprocessor. This device may potentially be used in pulverised coal flow metering, monitoring deposit in semiconductor manufacturing, online cow milk flow metering and other applications.

(4) Measurement of gas/solids fluidised bed by ECT and electrostatic sensors

Gas/solids fluidised beds are commonly used in industry. However, the lack of efficient measurement tools prevents their operation from being optimised. The aim of this project is to develop and ECT/electrostatic sensing system. While ECT can provide gas/solids distribution, gas bubble velocity and flow dynamics, electrostatic sensors may be used to measure solids velocity. Machine learning may be used to extract critical parameters, so that the operation of a gas/solids fluidised bed can be optimised in real time.

Current research students

1. Yang Hu, working on application of ECT on robot gripper
2. Ruixiang Deng, working on robot arm with tactile sensors
3. Haozheng Bai, working on multi-modality sensing for robot arm 

Former students

1. Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, Senior Scientist, National Measurement Institute, Australia
2. Nas Chondronasios, Electronics Department Manager, EmDoT SA, Greece
3. Qian Xie, Owner, Eazytec Ltd, China
4. Faisal Bukhari, Head of Dept. of Computer Eng., Sir Syed University of Eng. and Technol., Pakistan
5. Min Yang, Owner, Sound Dragon Electronics and Acoustics Ltd, China
6. Alejandro Gonzalez-Nakazawa, Nottingham University, UK
7. Bin Cheng, Manager, ARM (China)
8. Yi Li, Associate Professor, Tsinghua University Shenzhen Graduate School, China
9. Idris Ismail, Associate Professor, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia
10. Xiaohui Hu, Owner, Wuhan Kangda Electrical Co., Ltd, China
11. Abdulgader Mohamed Hwili, Member of Parliament, Libya
12. Jiangtao Sun, Associate Professor, Beihang University, China
13. Zhen (Daisy) Ren, Research Assistant Professor, Chicago University, USA
14. Mimi Faisyalini Ramli, Lecturer, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
15. Wenbin Tian, Associate Professor, China Agriculture University
16. Khursiah Zainal Mokhtar, Malaysia
17. Marco A. Rodriguez, Manchester, UK
18. Haoyu Zhao, China
19. Jingqian Hong, Shanghai, China
20. Xiaofei Liu, Qingdao, China
21. Zihan Xia 

Academic visitors for sabbatical leave

1. Prof. Huaxiang Wang, Tianjin University, China
2. Prof. Shi Liu, Head of School of Control and Computer Engineering, North China Electric Power University, China
3. Prof. Haigang Wang, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
4. Dr Shengmin Ge, Associate Professor, Harbin Institute of Technol., China
5. Prof. Lihui Peng, Tsinghua University, China
6. SK Strandos, Bergen University, Norway
7. Dr Zhaotian Zhang, Director of Information Department, Natural Science Foundation of China
8. Dr Yanjuan Yang, Associate Professor, South China University of Technology, China
9. Jimmy Kjaersgaard-Rasmussen, Technical University of Denmark
10. Prof. Yan Han, Vice President of North University of China
11. Prof. Dixiang Chen, National University of Defence Technololgy, China
12. Dr Xiang Deng, Associate Professor, Beijing Jiaotong University, China
13. Prof. Hongwei Bian, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
14. Prof. Tiemei Yang, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, China
15. Dr Ying Tang, National University of Defence Technology, China
16. Dr Junpu Wang, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China
17. Dr Yongfeng Fu, Hangzhou University of Technology, China
18. Dr Fernando Rangel de Sousa, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil
19. Dr Jun Long, Beijing Institute of Control Engineering, China
20. Dr Lingke Zhou, Nanjng University of Science and Technology, China
21. Associate Professor Bola Wojuola, North-West University, South Africa
22. Ms Jessica Rodrigues, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

• Distinction Graduate of Tsinghua University, 1982
• Award from Chinese National Meas. Standard Bureau for final year project, 1982
• Distinction PhD Thesis of Tsinghua University, 1988
• 1st Prize of 6th Ministry of Industry of China for a major national project (as a team member), 1988
• Prize from Navigation journal for a paper, 1991
• 1997 IEE/NPL (Institution of Electrical Engineers/National Physical Lab) Wheatstone Meas. Prize
• 1997 Honeywell Prize from Institute of Meas. and Control (InstMC) for Best Article of the Year, published in Meas. + Control journal
• 2000 IEE Ayrton Premium for Best Paper of the Year, published in IEE Proc.-Sci. Meas. and Technol. journal
• Two prizes from Henan Province, China for a journal paper, 2004, 2006
• Most successful British Council Link with China, 2005
• Global Research Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng), 2006
• Best Paper at 5th International Symposium on Process Tomography in Poland, 2008
• IEEE Outstanding Organisation Award, 2008, 2012, 2014
• Highly Recommended Paper at IEEE Int. Workshop on Imaging Systems and Techniques, 2009
• IET Innovation Award Finalist, 2009
• Valued Reviewer of Sensors and Actuators A journal, 2009
• Outstanding Reviewer of Sensor Review journal, 2010
• Award in recognition of contribution from Senate of Technical University of Lodz, Poland, 2012
• Top most published author award from IEEE Trans. on IM, 2020
• Top most productive associate editor from IEEE Trans. on IM, 2020
• IEEE IMS appreciation of outstanding services to IEEE Trans. on IM as Associate Editor, 2012-2021
• IEEE IMS Best Application Award, 2021

• EEEN10492, Electric engineering fundamentals
• EEEN30242, Sensors and instrumentation

• Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Instrum. and Meas., 2012-
• Associate Editor of IET Science, Measurement and Instrumentation
• Editorial board member of Meas. Sci. Technol.
• Editorial board member of Sensor Review
• Honorary Chairman of IEEE Int. Conference on Imaging Systems and Techniques (IST), 2009-2019
• Local Chair of IEEE IST’2012, Manchester, UK
• Local Chair of 2013 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Manchester, UK
• Co-Chair of 2017 IEEE Int. Instrum. and Meas. Technol. Conference, Torino, Italy
• IET Assessment Committee member, 2013-
• Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitation Fellow, 2016
• Qualified expert with Intota (USA), 2000- (expert ID: 721911)
• JSPA Bridge Fellow, 2022

External PhD examiner for

• University of Cape Town (South Africa), 2002
• Indian Institute of Technol. Madras (India), 2007
• Telemark University College (Norway), 2008
• Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (Germany), 2008
• Liverpool University (UK), 2010
• City University (UK), 2014
• University of Kent (UK) 2014, 2019
• University of British Columbia (Canada), 2014
• India Institute of Technol., Kharagpur (India), 2014
• University of Bath (UK), 2014
• Indian Institute of Technol. (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad Dhanbad (India), 2017
• Sheffield University (UK), 2018
• Cardiff University (UK), 2018
• Savitribai Phule Pune University (India), 2018
• Kunming University of Science and Technology (China), 2019

 Refereeing funding proposals for

• West Virginia University (USA), 2003
• National Research Foundation (South Africa), 2004, 2009
• Austrian Science Fund, 2008, 2012
• Natural Science Center (Poland), 2014-2016
• King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (Saudi Arabia), 2014-2016
• University of Gent (Belgium) 2014

 Overseas professorship appointment committee member for

• King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Saudi Arabia), 2005
• University Malaysia Science, 2006
• University of Greenwich (UK), 2015
• University Malaysia Technol., 2016
• Petroleum Institute (UAE), 2017