Centers and Labs
Three dedicated research spaces are available for projects affiliated with SYSE. The Energy Storage Systems Laboratory is supervised by Dr. Yurkovich; The Security in Control and Control of Networks Labroratory is managed by Dr. Ruths; and the Center for Control Science and Technology is also directed by Dr. Yurkovich.
Center for Control Science and Technology (CCST)
The Center for Control Science and Technology (CSST) at the University of Texas at Dallas is an umbrella organization of researchers in varied disciplines that meet the challenges of a rapidly changing, technology-driven, global society.
The CCST was formed in 2011 to accommodate a growing group of researchers focusing on systems, control science and technology. Dr. Yurkovich initiated the center’s development and was later named its director by the Dean of the Jonsson School.
The primary purposes for this umbrella organization include:
- Developing and organizing relevant curriculum
- Fostering joint proposals and research
- Recruiting excellent graduate students
- Promoting UT Dallas systems and control research
Beyond traditional areas of systems and control theory, the CCST supports activities in operations research and encompasses application areas including robotics, healthcare systems, energy systems, automotive systems and biomedical systems.
CCST researchers partner with businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area’s diverse industry climate. Major industries include defense, financial services, information technology and data, life sciences, semiconductors, telecommunications, transportation and processing. Among these businesses, 21 have been featured on Fortune magazine’s top 500 companies in the United States.
In addition to conducting interdisciplinary research that enhances relevant control systems technology, CCST practitioners host seminars taught by other leaders to deliver high-quality education to students and professional engineers.
Energy Storage Systems Lab
The Energy Storage Systems Lab is home to faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate) who are working on problems related to energy storage for vehicle applications, as well as stationary applications for large, complex systems. This facility houses equipment and graduate student office space for research in the area of lithium-ion batteries and battery packs, including modeling, control and experimental verification.
Lab equipment includes:
- Cycling station consisting of two programmable loads and a two-channel power supply, with automated testing software integrated into a Linux server
- Temperature control chamber for testing battery cells and packs at different temperatures
- Customizable battery module test fixtures
- Controllable Peltier devices for individual battery cell temperature control
The laboratory provides opportunity for hands-on research in battery cycling (charge and discharge cycles) for data collection used in battery/pack modeling and estimation for electric and hybrid vehicle applications. Individual batteries as well as larger battery packs are instrumented.
Security in Control and Control of Networks Lab
The Security in Control and Control of Networks lab is in ECSN 2.314 and houses several testbeds for studying the security of control systems. The system is used to research the impacts that cyber-attacks can have on industrial control systems.
The main testbed is a faithful reproduction of an inline separator that would be placed, for example, in a natural gas pipeline as part of a compressor station. Without the separator, the large compressor would be damaged quickly by the water vapor in the natural gas. A gas separation skid is a critical component in many industrial chemical and petrochemical processes, in which liquid is separated from gas, effectively converting wet gas to dry gas.
This physical system is instrumented and controlled with SCADA control systems (on wired and wireless networks,) providing students an opportunity to interact and gain experience with industry-standard equipment. The separator can run in continuous or batch mode allowing researchers to study control systems.
Laboratory for Dynamics and Control of Nanosystems (LDCN)
Laboratory for Dynamics and Control of Nanosystems (LDCN) is a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art research facility dedicated to the advancement of nanotechnology through innovations in systems theory and control engineering. The main goal of research in the laboratory is to develop methodologies, technologies, and the necessary instrumentation for fast and accurate interrogation and manipulation of matter at the nanoscale. Laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment for measurement, characterization and real-time control of high-precision mechatronic systems. LDCN’s multidisciplinary research team pursues a dynamic and active research program that maintains a solid systems and control focus on a variety of emerging applications in nanotechnology.
Center for Atomically Precise Fabrication of Solid-State Quantum Devices
Among many implementations of quantum technology, there is a particular interest in solid-state quantum devices. These require fabrication processes with accuracy and resolution well beyond the capability of the commercial tools presently used in the semiconductor industry, or even the best available research tools ever reported in the scientific literature. To meet the requirements of solid-state quantum device fabrication, the Quantum Center at UT Dallas brings together a collaborative team of researchers to develop atomically precise fabrication technologies, based on the Hydrogen Depassivation Lithography (HDL) method. This approach promises orders of magnitude improvements in resolution and precision over existing technologies.