About

The core activity of the McTronX research group is the dynamic systems modelling, control and process monitoring of large-scale industrial systems. Characteristic of the group is the multi-disciplinary nature of its projects.

The name McTronX is an acronym after the field of mechatronics and was chosen due to the strong activity in the area of active magnetic bearings (AMBs) (a product of mechatronics), in the initial years (2004) of its existence. An equally strong initial activity involved the modelling, control and process monitoring of thermal-fluid energy conversion systems. Since 2014 the focus pivoted strongly towards energy-based monitoring of large-scale industrial plants, including petrochemical processes for the purpose of fault detection and isolation.

Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the group’s activities, staff members and post graduate students across the engineering disciplines of electrical, mechanical and chemical are participating. Up to the end of 2023 the group has delivered in excess of 70 Master’s students and 16 PhD students. In terms of publications in excess of 60 accredited journal articles and 50 international conference contributions have culminated from the research.

Founder

Prof. George van Schoor founded the research group in 2003 due to the research needs of the PBMR project under way in South Africa at the time.  The needs involved Dynamic Modelling and Control on the main thermohydraulic cycle as well as AMBs that was seen as an enabling technology.

Mission

Modelling, control and process monitoring contributes to the safety and performance improvement of industrial processes. The improvement can be quantified in terms of specific objectives of which energy efficiency, product quality or plant reliability is most prominent.

Research Focus

• Energy-based monitoring and control of large-scale industrial plants.
  • Standardisation of the energy-based condition monitoring.
  • Machine learning and statistical learning algorithms for the purposes of energy-based process monitoring.
  • Soft sensing / inference of energy attributes.
  • Laboratory scale concept demonstrators.
• Modelling and control of renewable energy systems.
• Modelling and control of assistive medical devices.

Partnerships

Industrial:

• Sasol
• Proconics
• MTech Industrial

Academia: 

• The McTronX research group maintains international collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences Zittau / Görlitz in Germany since 2004, characterised by regular staff and student exchanges.

• Local collaboration with Stellenbosch University, Department of Process Engineering

Postgraduate Studies

We invite prospective Master’s and PhD students to join us on an exciting research journey with the McTronX research group.  Feel free to contact us for more information on our research projects and outputs.

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