Qing-Chang Zhong [People in Control]

I did my first degree in electrical engineering, more specifically, electrical automation. I took several courses on automatic control and also read many books on mathematics, thinking methods, and other subjects. I was fascinated by the fundamental principles underpinning different systems. One such principle is that the only constant is change, and another is that we can control ourselves. In the first couple of years after my graduation in 1990, I was responsible for delivering laboratory courses in control and electric drives, which offered me a great opportunity to work on different systems, such as dc motor drives using thyristors and ac motor drives using bipolar-junction transistors. After I was confident in my skills in hardware design, I moved on to software design, starting with assembler and then the C language and network communication. I developed 100-KB binary codes with an Intel 8086 assembler to control a whole chemical process with 10,000 tons of products annually. This significantly improved the productivity and product quality-I was amazed by the power of control. I decided to challenge myself to learn advanced control theories after four years of practical work so that I could understand systems better.