Professor Yong Yan

Yong Yan joined the University of Kent in 2004 as a Professor of Electronic Instrumentation and the Head of Instrumentation and Control Research Group. He was School Director of Research from 2008 to 2018 and has been School Director of Innovation since 2018. He has published more than 520 papers in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings with h-index of 52 and over 10,000 citations. In recognition of his contributions to pulverised fuel flow metering and burner flame imaging he was named an IEEE Fellow in 2011 and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020. He was awarded the Achievement Medal by the IEE in 2003, the Engineering Innovation Prize by the IET in 2006, Alec Hough-Grassby Award by the Institute of Measurement and Control in 2011, and the Best Paper Award in 2016 and the Best Application Award in 2017 both by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society. He acts as the Vice Chair of IMEKO TC20 (Measurements of Energy & Related Quantities), Council Member of International Flame Research Foundation (IFRF), and Member of the Executive Committee of the Fuel and Energy Research Forum (FERF). He has been teaching electronic instrumentation and related modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels for 31 years.  

His main areas of expertise are in Sensors, Instrumentation, Measurement, Condition Monitoring, Digital Signal Processing, Digital Image Processing and Applications of Artificial Intelligence.

He teaches electronics, sensors, instrumentation, measurement, signal processing, and project management modules. He also supervises students in Year-in-Industry.

Professor Yong Yan has supervised 44 PhD students and 3 MPhil/MSc-R students to successful completion. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the Measurement: Energy journal (Elsevier), Editor of the Measurement journal (Journal of the International Measurement Confederation, IMEKO), and Editor of the Measurement: Sensors journal (Elsevier). He has been an external examiner for PhD/MPhil degrees at Cardiff, City, Cranfield, Edinburgh, Glasgow Caledonian, Greenwich, Heriot-Watt, Imperial College, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield, South Wales, Surrey, Teesside and Westminster Universities.

Professor Yong Yan is available to supervise following PhD research projects: 

• CO2 flow metering under CCS conditions through multi-modal sensing and intelligent data fusion
• Slurry flow measurement through multi-modal sensing and machine learning
• Vibration monitoring of rotating machinery using electrostatic sensors
• Fire and smoke detection through electrostatic sensing
• Human presence and motion detection through electrostatic sensing
• Mass flow measurement and on-line sizing of pneumatically conveyed solids through acoustic and triboelectric sensing
• Characterisation of biomass and metal particles in power generation
• Advanced flame monitoring through digital imaging and spectroscopy
• Monitoring and characterisation of large scale industrial fires
• Monitoring of particulate emissions and dust levels through digital imaging, light scattering and electrostatic sensing
• Contactless temperature and humidity measurement of stored biomass