Yan Zhai

Sugar Land, Texas ***** Cell: 405-***-****

USA Email: abnsoy@r.postjobfree.com

OBJECTIVE: A fulltime position in real-time embedded system development

EDUCATION ● Ph.D. The University of Oklahoma May 2007

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Oklahoma State University December 2002

● M.S.

Mechanical Engineering (Systems and Control)

Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. May 1998

● B.S.

Electro-mechanical Engineering (Automation and Control)

PROFESSIONAL ● Strong algorithm design and implementation skills in the areas of signal processing

SKILLS and control:

Digital FIR/IIR filter design, stochastic adaptive filter design (LMS, RLS,

Kalman filter, etc.), system identification, nonlinear state estimation, spectral

estimation and analysis, control algorithms (nonlinear control, adaptive control,

robust control).

● Solid mathematical and analytical skills in statistical signal processing theories,

detection and estimation theories, Monte Carlo methods, control theories, machine

learning and pattern recognition ( neural networks, boosting, support vector machine,

etc.).

● Firmware/Software Skills:

Processors: Infineon C167 MCU, TI TMS320LF2407 MCU, TMS320C6747

DSP, Microchip PIC16 family MCU, Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA

Programming Languages: C\C++, TI C2xx Assembly, VHDL, working

knowledge of JAVA, C# and .NET,

Modeling and Testing Languages: Matlab, LabView

OS: Keil ARTX RTOS, TI DSP/BIOS, working knowledge of Linux & Unix

Industry communication protocols: CAN, CANOpen, J1939, OPC,

RS232/422/485, UART, and Ethernet.

Knowledge of digital electronics and electro-mechanical systems.

Experiences with oscilloscopes, In-circuit emulators and debugger, logic

analyzers, function generators.

Source code version control: Omniworks, CVS.

● Good verbal and written communication skills, fast learner, good team work as well

as independent skills.

● Familiar with formal product development process, project planning, management

skills.

● Basic knowledge of well services and wireline technologies in oil and gas industry.

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EMPLOYMENT Schlumberger Technology Corporation (5/2007- )

●

Electrical Engineer

Focused on the research and development of the next generation automation and control

systems for oil exploration and production applications. Detailed job duties include

system architect, research, design and implementation of advanced control and signal

processing algorithms, project planning and scheduling, implement iterative software

and firmware development process. The key projects are summarized below:

(1) Networked/Distributed control systems for well fracturing pump control

Developed the firmware for the networked control system, which is constituted by 80

networked micro-controllers and hundreds of sensors connected using different

communication protocols, such as Controller-Area Network (CAN), Honeywell Smart

Distributed System (SDS), J1939 and Ethernet. This system can control up to 20

wirelessly connected well fracturing pump units.

(2) Downhole conveyance system

Designed the firmware for a downhole conveyance system. The system is composed of

several functional modules: inter and intra tool communication, downhole and surface

telemetry, multi-sonde motion synchronization, and single sonde motion control. This

system is able to travel through horizontal well while carrying various logging tools.

This is a highly challenging project that requires excellent system reliability under

extreme working conditions such as high temperature (over 200C), high pressure and

high vibration. Also, the complex algorithms are efficiently implemented using limited

computing resources due to the space constrains and other downhole conditions.

(3) Special-purpose serial communication protocol

Designed and implemented a special purpose serial communication protocol based on

RS-232 for interfacing Schlumberger pump microcontrollers with other pumps and

controllers provided by different manufactures.

(4) High-precision control system for offshore well cementing unit:

Developed the firmware for an accurate slurry and liquid additive density control

system, which can operate under large system disturbances with imprecise sensor

measurements. A novel state estimation and control algorithm was developed.

(5) Wireline track winch control firmware

Participated in the development and testing of a wireline track winch control project.

Held formal technical review (FTR) and code review. Examined, modified and

debugged the firmware source code. Identified the root cause of outstanding issues.

● University of Oklahoma (1/2003-5/2007)

Research Assistant

Conducted interdisciplinary research in the areas of nonlinear state estimation,

statistical signal processing, and intelligent systems. Played a crucial role in various

research projects funded by federal agencies, including National Science Foundation

(NSF), Department of Defense (DoD) Army Research Office, The Office of Naval

Research (ONR), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Made

novel contributions in developing statistical signal processing algorithms for various

applications, such as visual target tracking for defense and security systems, automatic

tracking algorithms in wireless sensor networks, and radar applications. Some

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contributions are summarized below:

(1) Contributed intelligent target tracking algorithms for different applications,

including infrared target detection and tracking for targeting systems, people tracking

for intelligent surveillance systems, vehicle tracking for traffic control. These

algorithms can effectively deal with cluttered background, target deformation and

occlusion, camera ego-motion, changes in scale and illuminations.

(2) Developed an image denoising algorithm based on wavelet and particle filtering.

This algorithm can effectively address the noise mixtures involving difficult nonlinear

and non-Gaussian components.

(3) Designed various tracking algorithms for radar applications, such as tornado

detection and tracking, aircraft tracking. These techniques include multiple model

particle filters, improved methods for calculating proposal distributions, etc.

(4) Designed a multi-sensor fusion and tracking algorithm for ground vehicle tracking

in wireless sensor networks. This algorithm is capable to yield accurate and robust

estimations while reducing the computations and channel requirements in the sensor

network.

● Oklahoma State University (8/2000-12/2002)

Research Assistant

Participated in a high precision motion control project funded by Seagate Technology.

Explored nonlinear control theories. Developed control algorithms using input shaping

and sliding mode techniques for motion control in hard disk drives.

● Beijing Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd (5/1998-7/2000)

Beijing, China

Electrical Engineer

Responsible for the design of power amplifier and various valve actuators used in

building automation and control systems. The job included circuit board design,

simulation and lab testing for the prototype. Teamed with the engineers of other

disciplines to support field installation and testing. The products were successfully

developed and deployed in many landmark construction projects in china, e.g. Beijing

Oriental Plaza, Beijing Chang An Club, The Office Building of Chinese Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, etc.

AWARDS ● “The Certificate of Appreciation for Great Work”, Schlumberger, 2009

HONORS ● Member of Tau Beta Pi, the national honor society for engineering 2005

AND ● Recipient of the Sooner Heritage Scholarship, University of Oklahoma 2005

MEMBERSHIP ● NASA Travel Grant (traveling with Prof. Yeary), Goddard Space Center, 2005.

● Member of the IEEE since 2003

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SELECTED Internal Publications:

PUBLICATIONS Invention Disclosure (Schlumberger Patent Memo)

Y. Zhai “Recursive state estimation and system identification for nonlinear control systems,”

Schlumberger Invention ID: 6674, 2008.

Internal Report:

Y. Zhai, “Improved estimation techniques with sequential Monte Carlo,”

Schlumberger Workshop on Measurement Integration, Boston October 2007.

Peer-Reviewed Paper:

[1] Y. Zhai, M. Yeary, J. Havlicek and G. Fan, "A new centralized sensor fusion-tracking

methodology based on particle filtering for power-aware systems." IEEE Transactions on

Instrumentation & Measurement, vol. 57, no. 10, pp. 2377-2387, October 2008.

[2] Y. Zhai, M. Yeary, “Nonlinear state estimation using a particle filter with likelihood

proposal distributions,” IEEE International Conference on Instrumentation and

Measurements (IMTC), pp. 702-705, May 2008.

[3] Y. Zhai, M. Yeary, “An intelligent video surveillance system based on multiple model

particle filtering,” IEEE International Conference on Instrumentation and Measurements

(IMTC), pp. 254-258, May 2008.

[4] Y. Zhai, M. Yeary, “A new particle filter algorithm for DOA sensor systems,” IEEE

International Conference on Instrumentation and Measurements (IMTC), Digital Object

Identifier 10.1109/IMTC.2007.379413, May 2007.

[6] Y. Zhai, M. Yeary, D. Zhou, “Target tracking using a particle filter based on the

projection method,” IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal

Processing (ICASSP), vol. 3, pp. 1189-1192, April 2007.

[7] Y. Zhai, M. Yeary, “Visual target tracking using improved and computationally efficient

particle filtering,” IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), pp. 1757-

1760, October 2006.

[8] Y. Zhai and M. Yeary, “A novel nonlinear state estimation technique based on sequential

importance sampling and parallel filter banks,” Proceedings of IEEE International

Conference on Control Applications, pp. 1606-1611, August 2005.

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